In the Way
by practical cynicism
Summary: Lily is a perfectionist, but that doesn’t make her life perfect. Only James sees through her and brings out her flaws to prove his point. Is he just in her way, or could he be the one who saves her before she makes the biggest mistake in her life?
1. Perfection beyond the Pale

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

**Disclaimer: **JK Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter novel series. I am just a fan who is writing a story about some of her characters for no profit. (I'm writing this only once for the whole story, not anymore in further chapters…I'll just expect that no one's going to sue me now that I've clarified that…)

_"The desire of perfection is the worst disease that ever afflicted the human mind."_

_~Louis de Fontanes_

**Chapter 1: Perfection beyond the Pale**

Lily Evans was a perfectionist. She wasn't exactly uptight, as some perfectionists tend to be. No, being uptight and too fussy didn't fit well with a _perfect image of a sixteen-year-old witch, and for that reason, most people didn't really notice the effects of her way of thinking. _

What they saw was a gorgeous redhead who had the nicest qualities and was the top student of the school. What they saw was a person who could handle pressure coolly, had a quick and sharp wit, and had yet to show them her bad side—because she didn't seem to have one. In short, she was _perfect. _The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect friend, the perfect everything. 

And everybody in school never bothered to know _why_ she seemed so flawless, which was virtually impossible, because nobody, no human, could be perfect. For a full five years in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, nobody wondered why…until now. Because now, at the start of Lily's sixth year, it occurred to somebody that this mystery had to be solved. And that somebody's name was James Potter. 

James's first thought on the matter was that Lily had to be bad at _something, _had to have a horrendous quality that she hid away from other people, like having athlete's foot or controlled obsessive-compulsive tendencies…wait, that last part didn't mix. And he thought of the mystery no more for the first day of class. 

On the second day, however, he laid his eyes on the girl that had captured his interest (not in _that way…yet) once again, and he resolved to be the one who would know what would make the girl crack her faultless exterior. In his opinion, though, she wasn't as perfect as she seemed in other's eyes. Like, she wasn't perfect at flying a broom, but she was a bit good at it, really. But then, wouldn't the perfect person have to have something that they weren't _too_ good at for them to be perfect? _

James shook his head. He was doing so much thinking, he was starting to confuse himself. He hadn't liked Lily very much, despite all her _likeable_ qualities, because it seemed to him that all of it was a bit unreal. It was just that he hadn't paid much attention to it until now—

"A Knut for your thoughts," a voice spoke suddenly in his ear, and he looked to his left to glance at the source: his best friend, Sirius Black. 

"Nothing that would interest you, I'm afraid," James answered. He had already perfected the art of not being caught off guard when he was thinking deeply and suddenly interrupted—Sirius used to make speculations of James fantasizing about some girl whenever he stuttered an answer. Just say the word "um" or "er" and his best friend would instantly translate it as "that hot Ravenclaw chick who sits two rows to your left during Arithmancy." 

As was expected, Sirius looked rather disappointed, and they entered their Transfiguration classroom without undue teasing on Sirius's part. James saw a flash of vivid red hair at the corner of his eye and groaned inwardly—couldn't he forget about Miss Perfection's riddle for once? 

Professor McGonagall, their teacher who was in her late-twenties, set them to work on a rather tricky spell where they had to transfigure a rabbit's different parts into separate and different things—at once. It was no easy task and she started calling off names so that the students could pair up. "Black and Aubrey, McDougal and Lupin, Evans and Potter…" 

Fate seemed to want to push James into doing what he resolved to do, because it was handing him all the right opportunities. He figured that the easiest way to bring the worst out of Lily Evans was to annoy her…and as one of the school's resident mischief-makers, James was an expert at irritating the hell out of people. He had never thought of victimizing Lily before, though. She was so well-liked, other students would be scandalized if they witnessed him—or his other friends—pulling a "harmless" prank on her. 

But a little aggravating couldn't hurt, right? 

"Hey, Lily," James said, all smiles as he stood next to his partner at their assigned desk. Their rabbit was peacefully munching on some carrot sticks that Lily had given it. Of course. Sweet, kind, thoughtful Lily… She would never let an experimental animal _starve itself…_

Lily nodded at him and smiled back. "Hello, James. We need to turn each of the rabbit's feet into four matches, its ears into quills, its body into a loaf of bread, its head into a pincushion, and its tail into a small ball. Any questions?"

James rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself. Lily didn't seem to notice, though. Geez, how did she know that, when McGonagall hadn't even given them instructions yet? A second later the professor tapped her wand on the blackboard and the instructions appeared—exactly as Lily had told James. _What! _Did he have to add psychic abilities to her list of accomplishments now?

Lily must have noticed him looking quizzically at her and she explained, "I've got a copy of Professor McGonagall's lesson plan; she didn't seem to mind my being curious, she said that it was actually good for a student to be so enthusiastic in being ahead in the classes." 

Leave it to Lily Evans to _memorize the lesson plan… "Yeah, so, do we have to turn the tail into a particular ball or something, like a Snitch or a golf ball?" James asked sarcastically, starting to become a little irritated at her, well, perfect ways…_

"I don't think it matters, James, and will you please not utter your sardonic remarks in this activity, because if you haven't noticed, I'm not doing anything to ire you," she replied in a tone so polite that he couldn't find an excuse to give a snappy retort. 

He sighed. Taking the mickey out of Lily Evans was going to be harder than he thought. "Okay, let's get to it." 

*****  

"What's up with you, Prongs? You've been so uptight ever since Transfiguration—and usually you're so _brilliant at it that you don't have anything to complain about…" Sirius prodded after the lesson. At the moment they were heading for the Great Hall for dinner. _

James groaned silently; he couldn't tell his friends the reason why he was so frustrated. That Evans was a clever one, turning the tables and making _James _get annoyed instead of the other way around…

"Yeah, I've been wondering about that. Nothing bad could possibly come out of the lesson, since he was paired with Lily," Remus Lupin added. 

 "It's a crime to put two of the biggest Transfiguration brains together; would you believe that they got off doing a three-foot-long essay on Life-to-Non-life Dividing Spells, while all the rest of us have to sacrifice a night's worth of sleep for it?" Sirius remarked with a scowl.

"I'd believe it," Peter Pettigrew chirped in reply.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "It was a rhetorical question, Wormtail." 

James sighed as Peter's face scrunched up in confusion at the word "rhetorical" and Remus mildly explained what it meant in simpler words. Sirius continued to grumble about unfairness and the like until they reached their usual seats at the Gryffindor table. 

"Why would you have any problems with the activity, Padfoot? You're practically next to Lily and James at being the top student in Transfiguration," Remus pointed out, voicing the question that he should have asked five minutes ago to save him the annoyance of listening to Sirius whining about petty things. 

"It's all McGonagall's fault; she said that it was supposed to be a _team effort, _and even though Christine Aubrey's a good snog, she's a complete dunce at Transfiguration," Sirius complained. "I would have done it all myself, but you know McGonagall, she's so into that cooperative-learning thing…"

James tuned out his friend's voice and dully reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes on his right. As he did so he caught sight of Lily talking to one of her friends, and Lily had this…_serene look on her face that made him instantly irritated again. He didn't know _what _made him so annoyed with her being that way. Or maybe he did… _

Her attitude seemed so fake to him, now that he thought about it. Maybe it was all in his imagination; else he was the only one in Hogwarts who wasn't oblivious. There was only one way to find out…

James got out of his seat right in the middle of Sirius's tirade, but none of the other marauders seemed to notice. He casually took a seat between Lily and her friend Chloe Tiernan. "Hiya, Lily," he greeted in his best false-sincere voice, flashing a grin.

"Hey, James," Chloe said flirtatiously, flipping her blonde hair back and giggling. 

James raised his eyebrows. Ookay…so either she didn't hear him _specifically_ say hi to Lily, or she was just fishing for a date. Well, at least that was something he could list down as one of Lily Evan's imperfect traits…_"not being able to choose sensible and un-annoying friends." He didn't know that he was being a little biased, though, because after all the times he was being chased by squealing and swooning girls he had grown irritated with their seemingly universal laugh: the girlish giggle. _

"James." Lily nodded in way of greeting, her expression neutral. "Have you come to try to tell me once again that being studious and serious about school is for losers with no life?" 

Ugh! The tone she used with him was _so_ infuriating…polite, patronizing, sarcastic but mild…all blended into one melodious voice. He didn't know how she could pull it off. "No, I believe I exhausted all the excerpts of that philosophy of mine already, thank you," James answered, forcing civility into his voice.

"I see. Then why _are you here?" Lily inquired as she took a bite of roast beef. _

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, this is the Gryffindor table, and I'm entitled to sit anywhere I want. Unless they changed the rules in the last ten minutes I checked. I suppose you would be able to tell me, since you always seem to be up-to-date with this kind of thing," he mocked. 

Lily smiled. "James, I don't think you ever bothered to read the rule book. And I meant to ask you what you were doing on this side of the table since you're usually sitting with your friends."

James pretended to look hurt. "Is it a crime to want to talk to you?" 

Lily opened her mouth, but Chloe didn't seem too keen with sending James away.

"Oh, don't mind Lily, she just doesn't want to talk much while she's eating. You can talk to _me if you like," Chloe suggested, batting her eyelashes._

"Erm…I was just going to tell Lily something about that Transfiguration essay we got out of. I can tell her later, so…see ya," he lied easily, slipping out of his seat and strolling back toward his friends. Ah, well…he could always try again…he should think of another tack to bring the bad side out of Lily Evans…

*****  

"Really, Chloe, do you have to act like that whenever he's around?" Lily asked, rolling her eyes at her friend, who was disappointedly watching James Potter's retreating back.

"Act like what?" Chloe demanded, turning her attention back to Lily.

"Well, don't take it the wrong way or anything, but you were acting a bit like a ditz, and I don't think James is too impressed by that," Lily said gently but honestly. 

Nami Tzu, their other friend, snickered, her dark brown eyes dancing. "A _bit_? More like full blast," she scoffed. She tossed her jet-black hair over her shoulder exaggeratedly and batted her eyelashes. "Hey, James, do you mind fornicating with me later this evening?" she said in imitation of Chloe's higher-pitched voice. 

"I did _not say anything of the sort!" Chloe cried, looking scandalized. "You have a _very_ dirty mind, Nami!" _

"What? I was only _drawing out the implications," Nami said innocently. _

Chloe threw her hands up. "Implications? I'll give you implications. Care to tell me what my voice is implying right now?" she threatened in a dangerous voice, standing up to better reach the brunette across the table. 

Nami shrugged. "Yep. 'Nami Tzu, I am going to strangle you for putting an R-rated word and my name in the same sentence.'" She smiled saccharinely. "Pray tell, am I wrong?"

Chloe sat back in her seat and turned to Lily. "Ooh, she's good." 

Lily shrugged. "It's not like you were being subtle." 

"Anyway, the point is, you should forget about your silly infatuation with James Potter, before I disown you as a friend for being such an embarrassment," Nami remarked, staring pointedly at Chloe. 

"Half of Hogwarts' girl population have their eyes on him, and I don't see you calling _them an embarrassment," Chloe complained, gesturing at the James Potter Fan Club: Ravenclaw Division, for emphasis. _

Nami waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, they don't count. My friends are supposed to be well-respected, dignified people, and if you turn into a bimbo you would lose those two qualities. Right, Lil?" she said, looking to the redhead for agreement. 

"I really don't know. Why are you so obsessed over James anyway? If you ask me, he's arrogant, overconfident and rather mean… You see those pranks he plays on innocent people; I suppose he only does it for fun…" Lily answered, glancing at James.

"Ooooh, Lily Evans just said something negative about somebody; that is definitely something worth writing down…" Nami teased, pretending to look for a spare parchment and a quill in her bag.

"…he's also hot, witty, intelligent, and a real slick Quidditch player, which means he has the perfect body…" Chloe rattled on, oblivious to Nami's keen observation. 

Nami jumped up from her seat and pointed at her blonde friend. "Aha! So you _are after him for the se—"_

_"Silencio!" _Chloe hissed, her wand readily in her hand. "Are you crazy or something?! You wanna get caught yelling indecent language by one of the teachers?" she whispered fiercely. 

Nami grinned sheepishly and shook her head, then pointed at her mouth to signal that Chloe could undo the curse already. 

"Nuh-uh, you're not going to speak until we reach the safety and privacy of our dorm room," Chloe said resolutely, glaring at Nami. Nami looked pleadingly at Lily. Lily did the counter curse. 

"Lil!" Chloe exclaimed. "You can't go easy on her just like that! We're supposed to punish her!" 

"Don't you think she'll just embarrass you more afterwards if you don't do what she wants?" was Lily's simple reply. 

"Oh yeah," Chloe said in startling realization. "Why don't we just leave now, before she does any more damage?" she suggested to the redhead, jerking a thumb at Nami. 

The other two didn't object, and the trio made their way out of the Hall. Chloe, who was still sullen over Nami's teasing, had resorted to lecturing Lily. 

"You know, Lil, you shouldn't have to be so nice all the time, it's bound to have negative consequences someday…"

***** 

"What was that all about?" Sirius asked James in the common room, where they were seated in plushy armchairs by the fire.

"What was what all about?" James answered automatically, although he already knew what Sirius was talking about. 

Sirius rolled his eyes, knowing that James _knew _what he was saying and was pretending to be oblivious about it. "That thing with Lily Evans during dinner. It's not exactly your style to come up to a girl, especially one like Li—" He narrowed his eyes suddenly, looking at James with suspicion. 

James knew exactly what his friend was thinking. 

"Wait. Don't tell me you that you _like _her…" Sirius said warily. James mouthed his words along with him perfectly. 

"No," James replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. This eye-roll thing was starting to become a habit as of late… "I have never had any secret longings and desires to be Evans's soul mate, thank you very much." 

Sirius had a mad glint in his eye, as he always did when he was warming up to annoy the hell out of somebody. "Oh, but you don't have to hide it from me, Prongs. Although, I'm a bit surprised by your sudden change of taste, you usually pick girls who just want to snog until there's no tomorrow, and I don't think Lily's that type of girl—"

"Sirius." James glared at him, noticing that several people who were peacefully doing their homework had started to swing their heads in the direction of Sirius's loud voice. _"Shut. Up." Not only had Lily fried his nerves with her oh-so-sweet but cleverly cunning mockeries, Sirius had to be in one of his juvenile moods and aggravate James about non-existent infatuations. To top it all off, he just _had_ to pick Lily as James's supposed crush, and the only thoughts that James wanted to entertain about her were ways on how to make her lose her temper and crack her visibly calm and collected exterior, and it was no satisfaction to realize that he hadn't thought of a single thing yet. _

"—more of the sweet and sensible kind. Guys always seem to want to ask her out, but they can't seem to get close to her. I don't know…she's just so…pure. Like an angel stuck on earth, you know what I mean? It's like she's too good to be true, and the poor fools who fall in love with her can't get close to her at all; they all probably feel that they don't deserve her because she's so perfect. I don't think she could even hurt a _fly, _but by the way she aces all the classes, I think she's capable of dishing out more than a few complex hexes…" Sirius continued to blather on about Lily's positive traits (there were no negative things he could think of), and James started to shut it all out, when…

_Wait a minute. 'Guys can't get close to her…'_  "She doesn't have a boyfriend!" James exclaimed triumphantly, finally finding a flaw in Lily's image. She was sixteen years old; any normal girl that age would want to have a special someone. Any he knew that Lily Evans always went for perfection, although even with that in mind, her actions were still unpredictable at times. You'd think a perfectionist would be that obvious and monotonous that you'd be able to interpret his or her every move…but Lily was just…not. James couldn't see any reason why she couldn't have a boyfriend: she was well-liked, sociable, pretty, and intelligent… Any guy would fall for her. Well, any guy but _him. He found it extremely irksome that a person could seem so unfaultable. She _had _to have flaws. _

"That's what I'm telling you. No need to be that ecstatic about it…" Sirius said apprehensively, misinterpreting James's glee as relief that Lily Evans was available.  

"This is great! Now I have some material to annoy her with! Thanks, Padfoot!" James said, before standing up and heading for the staircase that led to the boys' dormitories. 

That was not the reply that Sirius was expecting. He followed at his friend's heels. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why do you want to annoy her? What's she do to you?" he asked as they climbed up the steps. 

"Because she can't be perfect and I'm going to prove it, and she infuriates me with her patronization and her well-concealed insults to my person that are so subtle that she can make sure that I'm the only one who notices, so that she can maintain her perfect little flower image," James responded as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. 

"What! You must be overreacting, else somebody must have put a Confundus Charm on you… Nobody is perfect, everyone knows that… You'd be insulting the whole student body if you said they're stupid enough to think that a person could be so golden at everything… Besides, you're saying that Lily "Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth" Evansmocked you? Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Sirius said suspiciously. 

James smiled cheerily. "Just fine. And Evans isn't as nice as you think she is, you know. Haven't you ever wondered how weird it is that you've never seen her lose her temper or blow up at somebody before? It's like she's forcing herself to be affable all the time, don't you think? I should do a prank on her and see how she reacts; imagine her just smiling and saying 'It's quite all right' if I turn her hair white and plant Dungbombs in her closet…"

"What I think is that someone must have addled your brains somehow in the last half hour. You can't torment _Lily Evans, Prongs! That's like…like…" Sirius groped for an analogy that would best express his meaning. "Like slaying a unicorn!"_

James burst out laughing at Sirius's chosen simile. "You see? This is what I'm trying to tell you! Everyone thinks she's some sort of saint who could do no wrong. Anyway, there's no harm in a little prank, it's not like I'm going to have her tortured or anything."

They reached the door to their room and Sirius shrugged, sighing in defeat. "It's your funeral, mate. I just want to ask you this. How can you even _think_ of playing a prank on a person as nice, sweet, and harmless as Lily?" 

James feigned thinking deeply. "Gee, I don't know. How could you have turned that sweet, nice, and _harmless Hufflepuff first year's nose into a plump tomato yesterday when she was just trying to help you pick up the prank books that you dropped in the hallway?" he asked in pretended incredulity. _

"You know what? I think Lily wouldn't mind you doing a prank on her… I mean, as long as it doesn't cause any lasting damage, it should be okay," Sirius said hurriedly, eliciting a smirk from the unruly-haired boy.

*****  

"Ow!" Lily said, clapping a hand to her mouth after accidentally biting her tongue. 

"What happened?" Nami asked in concern as she came out of the bathroom in her pajamas. 

"Nothing, I just bit my tongue, is all…" Lily assured, wincing as the pain grew as she spoke. 

"Somebody must have been thinking or talking about you at that moment, then! Quick, ask for a number," Nami commanded.

"Ten!" Chloe shouted, before turning confusedly to Nami. "What for?"

"A, B, C, D…" Nami recited, counting the letters off on her fingers. "Letter J? Think of somebody whose name starts with a J."

"Er…" Lily said, trying to rack her name for a suitable person. 

Chloe bounced up and down. "James Potter! Oh, Lily, I bet he was thinking about you just now!" she concluded jealously. 

"Yeah, I bet. He _must be thinking romantic thoughts about me after the way he attempted to insult me during Transfiguration class," Lily said sardonically. She raised her eyebrows at Nami in way of asking about the weird logic._

"Just an old Japanese belief. I have no idea if it's true; I don't think anybody would be able to prove it anyway," Nami explained. 

"James wouldn't insult you Lil! How could you think that of him?" Chloe exclaimed. 

Lily shook her head. Whenever Chloe had a crush on someone, it always made her blind to that person's faults. 

"Are you blind, Chloe? Where _have you been these five years? James Potter and his friends have been terrorizing the Hogwarts population with their 'amusing' pranks ever since they first stepped foot into the school train in our first year," Nami pointed out in a tone mixed with disbelief and exasperation. _

Chloe pouted. "Boys are like that. Besides, that just makes him more interesting!"

"Yes, I'm sure the way he and Black charmed my books to shout 'I am in love with Severus Snape!' in my voice is _very_ interesting," Nami said crisply. She had never liked the marauders, particularly Sirius Black. Sirius had turned her hair into worms during their first day in first year for no apparent reason except to say that he was told by McGonagall to think about what he did (which was doing the exact same prank on a Slytherin first year, earning him a detention), and he decided that he had to do it again to better comprehend his act, because it was his way of understanding things. Nami's worst phobia was worms. But since she was a Japanese transferee then and didn't know any hexes yet in the English language (one of Hogwarts' ancient protection charms was that no old magic originating from another country could be cast within its walls), she was powerless to get back at him. She had loathed him ever since. 

That was why she constantly nettled Chloe by mocking her friend's infatuation on James, "to get it out of her system," as she put it. She disliked the marauders mainly because they were Sirius's close friends, and Remus was the only exception. He was always nice to her. 

"That was _all Sirius! James had no part in that," Chloe protested, glancing at Lily for support. "You're just putting in James's name in it 'cause you've got a grudge against Sirius. You're making him guilty by association!"_

Lily shrugged, slightly inclined to laugh at Chloe's dramatic way of putting it. "She's right, you know." 

Nami rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Don't think you can't count the numerous other times he hexed innocuous people in the corridors, just because he thinks he has the right to. He's just as arrogant and pompous as his prat of a best friend." 

Chloe threw up her hands in exasperation. "You are hopeless! I'm going to bed." She climbed onto her four-poster bed and pulled the maroon covers above her head. 

"I am not hopeless. I am being _honest_," Nami corrected, but followed her friend's lead into the journey to sleep. 

Lily took a shower first and followed soon after, lying down on her bed and trying to make herself comfortable. She sat up to draw the hangings and bit her tongue again. "Ow…"

"Ten…" Nami mumbled in her sleep. Lily glanced at her, startled. As soon as she started thinking that her friend was just pulling her leg by pretending to be asleep, the sleep-talking girl continued, "…points to Slytherin for that superb goal…" 

Lily chuckled, shaking her head. Nami was the commentator for all the inter-House Quidditch matches. She was always trying to polish her "commentating skills" by learning not to be biased, as was usual of commentators of certain Houses when their team was playing. She had said that McGonagall was always watching the commentator like a hawk and perfection wasn't exactly a sin if it would help her avoid a telling-off. 

Perfection. 

She remembered the way James had suddenly called her attention by going out of his way to bother her, hoping to rile her somehow. Nobody ever did that before, because they never questioned or doubted her behavior. But he did. 

And she didn't like that. Not at all.

*****  

~ A/N ~ 

Lily is **not going to be a Mary Sue kind of person. That's why James doesn't like her, because he thinks she is. I would appreciate feedback  just to know if there are people who are interested in my story or not…that way I'll update faster. **


	2. Musings

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

_"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"_

**_~_**_Sir Walter Scott_

**Chapter 2: Musings **

"That is evil. _Really _evil. I bet even _Dumbledore_ will throw a fit once he sees what you did, I can't believe you'd really do it…" Sirius said in an annoyingly pious voice as the marauders made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. 

James sighed. Honestly. Sirius, the prankster extraordinaire, the one who had lost his naïveté ever since he and James made their first prank back when they were eight, the person who was the biggest rule breaker in the history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was playing the role of James's _conscience. James thought that his best friend had lost his conscience along with his sanity ever since he had hexed Nami Tzu in their first year, "just for the fun of it." James would have been sorry for the girl if she hadn't cursed Sirius with a number of foreign-sounding spells during their first flying lesson out on the grounds, which unfortunately took place after she had recovered her wits from being nearly scared to death by close contact with more than a three dozen fat, slimy worms on her head. _

He noted that the violent (at least where Sirius was concerned) Oriental girl was another of Lily's close friends, and didn't improve his impression on Lily's ability on choosing her mates at all. ****

"You mean you actually went through with it? You pulled a prank on Lily Evans?" Peter squeaked in a terrified voice, glancing from James to Sirius to James again. 

"What is wrong with you people? It's as if I told you guys to join me to go out kicking puppies for fun. It wasn't that bad, I just did the mildest thing we ever do to the people we prank on—turn her hair into an embarrassingly different color," James said defensively, still disbelieving that his friends, who always went alongside with him during pranks, were so strongly against him. 

"I'm not so sure about this, Prongs. I mean, why would you pull a prank on her in the first place? She's a Gryffindor, and a girl at that—you know we never prank girls unless they're a particularly nasty Slytherin—and she's so nice to us. Heck, she even asks us nicely to stop doing pranks whenever she catches us, when you know very well that any other prefect would blow up if they saw us stepping over the line," Remus said matter-of-factly.

Sirius stopped berating James and addressed Remus. "But you're a prefect, aren't you Moony? Then if you catch yourself doing a prank or breaking the rules you'd have to give yourself a telling-off!" He burst out laughing at this and James let out a sigh of relief; at least he wouldn't be forced to feel guilty anymore by Sirius the Psychotic "Angel." 

Remus rolled his eyes. "Simply brilliant, that mind of yours, Padfoot," he said sarcastically. "I wonder sometimes what it would be like for you to be sensible and sane for once…"

Sirius immediately stopped sniggering. "Hey! I can be serious if I want to!" he said indignantly. He paused, as if thinking something through. "Wait, I already am Sirius, aren't I? Then I can be me all I want!" He started chortling again. 

"That you are, Padfoot. That you are," Remus responded dryly.

*****  

The marauders were already nice and settled in their places at the Gryffindor table, and James was peering around eagerly for a sight of a certain redhead. 

"She's not here yet," he said disappointedly as he sat back down in his seat. He glanced down at his plate, which Remus had emptied of food when he was busy scanning the Hall. "Oi! Hands off my bacon, Moony!" 

Remus grinned and pointed at his closed mouth, which was full of food, presumably James's breakfast. James grumbled incoherently as he started to pile liberal amounts of food on his plate again.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you liked Lily," Sirius spoke up. "Look at you, you're all excited to see her first thing in the morning…"

"I thought we've already clarified that I have no feelings whatsoever toward her? Unless you're opting for intense dislike, which would be right off the mark," James said impatiently. This I-know-she's-your-crush-and-you-can't-deny-it act from Sirius was getting a little old. 

"Why do you hate her?" Peter asked curiously.

James said, "I don't _hate her, I just don't like the way she looks so perfect at everything" at the same time that Sirius commented, "Ahhh…there is a thin line between love and hate, Prongs m'boy…" James put a Silencing Charm on Sirius, who shrugged and grinned, looking irritatingly happy that he had managed to piss James off in a short span of time. _

"Why don't you like her because she's perfect at everything?" 

"No, she's _not perfect at everything, she just seems like that, and that's what's so annoying."_

"Why is her being seemingly perfect so annoying?"

"Because it's so phony, Wormtail, and I'm the only one who seems to realize it."

"Why do you think it's phony and why are you the only one who seems to realize it?"

"_Because—argh, you're being just as annoying as Padfoot!" James cried in vexation, gesturing accusingly at his silenced best friend._

Peter smiled satisfactorily. "Good. I was imitating him, didn't you know?" 

James was looking at him with a mixture of disbelief and irritation when Remus interrupted. 

"Well, that short interrogation explains a lot, but I still disagree with you on having to hex such a kind girl as Lily. How did you get to her dorm room anyway? You know that the staircase to the girl's dormitory turns into a slide whenever a boy steps foot on it." 

"I used my broom to get in through the open window. I made the curse so that it'd work on the first person who gets under the doorway of the shower, and it'll only be activated when she's five feet into the Great Hall, so that she can't attempt to change it back in the privacy of the dorms," James explained, looking satisfactory at his simple yet effective plan. 

Remus frowned. "Isn't there a one-to-five chance on that? Any of the other girls could enter the bathroom before Lily."

James waved the small detail away. "Oh, it'll be her. She's the early riser among all of them, remember? She has to look all perfect and composed before gracing all of us with her divine presence," he said cynically, rolling his eyes. 

"What reasonable excuse have you got against her?" Remus pressed. "It's not enough to say that you're annoyed with her when she didn't do anything wrong. You know that." Sirius tapped him on the shoulder, pointing at his voiceless mouth and giving the werewolf the puppy dog look. "No, Padfoot, you're much more tolerable when you're mute."

"I'm trying to prove a point, Moony. I just want her to get irritated for once. She annoys me all the time, why can't I do the same?" James challenged.

"Because she doesn't know that she's annoying you. She's just being herself," Remus tried to reason. But James shook his head stubbornly.

"No way. If that's her _normal _self, you might as well call her a goddess." James frowned. "Nobody's perfect."

Remus smiled gently. "And Lily isn't. She's just _amiable._" Beside him, Sirius nodded vigorously in agreement. 

James racked his brain for a way on how to effectively explain his thoughts and get his point across. "Maybe she is, but—" His statement was interjected by a shriek coming from the entrance to the Great Hall. He quickly turned his head to look, cursing that he hadn't seen firsthand Lily's expression when she found out her hair was a different color—

But it wasn't Lily whose hair had turned into a horrible shade of neon green. 

_"_SIRIUS BLACK, YOU ARE_ DEAD_!!!_" Nami Tzu screamed furiously, looking ridiculous with her new (and un-improved) hair. "YOU'D BETTER WISH THAT YOU'D NEVER BE IDIOTIC ENOUGH TO TAKE A STEP OUT OF THE CASTLE, BECAUSE IF YOU DO, I WILL BE THERE TO HEX YOU INTO OBLIVION!" ___

Sirius swiveled around in his chair—Silencing Charms didn't make him deaf—and his face scrunched up and his mouth opened, letting out soundless laughter. All the occupants of the Hall turned to see who was causing such a racket, and almost instantaneously burst into choruses of giggling and chortling. 

"Don't even say it," James warned dangerously, glaring at Remus, whose mouth was about to form the words "I told you so." The bespectacled boy bumped his head repeatedly on the table for his stupid mistake. 

Peter, who was sniggering along with Sirius (if you could call Sirius' muted actions _sniggering), abruptly stopped at once as he stared, terrified, at the shadow that had covered Sirius, who was still in his seat. He looked up and saw blazing brown eyes, so dark that they were almost black, and a shock of long, silky neon green hair. "Er, Sirius…" _

Everyone around them started to hush up and stop laughing, awaiting Sirius Black's fate with bated breath. It took a good thirty seconds before Sirius noticed that the whole Hall had fallen silent, and that there was a presence behind him. 

A _murderous presence. _

He turned around reluctantly, deep blue eyes meeting lethal dark brown. He barely had time to say anything (not that he could) when two slender hands wrapped themselves around his neck and started to strangle him.

"You _idiot, turn my hair back _at once_! Water didn't work; I've tried every single countercurse for this that I know, and even _finite incantatem _is useless, now do yourself a favor and undo this goddamn curse or you'll wish you'd never been born!" Nami yelled at him furiously. Sirius made choking actions, frantically trying to pry the Japanese girl's hands off his neck, but she had a surprisingly strong grip. _

"_Miss Tzu! Cease that at once! How __dare you, attempting to cause bodily harm to another student in front of all your teachers—shouting out death threats—the utter abomination!" Professor McGonagall said in seething and revolted tones, appearing beside the two in seconds and trying to push Nami away from Sirius, who was very purple in the face from lack of oxygen. It took more than that to stop the livid girl, and James and Remus had to pull on each of her wrists—with both hands—to get Sirius some air. Sirius started to gag and gasp (Remus had finally taken pity on him and undid the Silencing Charm before they extracted Nami's hands from his sore neck). Every student (and even a few teachers) shuddered, making a mental note never to piss off a certain Oriental sixth year Gryffindor girl. Angry adrenaline did nasty things to people. _

Professor McGonagall continued to reproach Nami, who was still mercilessly giving Sirius the glare of death. "You are a _Gryffindor, _and a close friend of a _prefect, _how could you—"

"He asked for it, Professor! I didn't even do anything to him, and he goes out of his way to make me miserable—make him turn my hair back to normal and maybe I'll forgive him—"

"You are in no position to make such demands, Miss Tzu! You have no proof that Black did it—"

"_Proof? You don't need _proof_. Whenever a riot breaks out because a Slytherin grows an extra arm or starts spewing out fungus from his mouth, you immediately assume that this-this __imbecile did it. Why would this time be any different?" Nami argued, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering._

Professor McGonagall's stern face appeared to falter for a moment before she said in a snappish tone, "Very _well. Black and Miss Tzu, I am giving you both detentions. Be at my office at eight o'clock sharp this evening so that we may discuss it. Thirty points from Gryffindor for abhorrent disregard and violation of the school rules. _No_ objections, Miss Tzu," she added in a warning tone, glaring at Nami who had opened her mouth in protest. "And be grateful it isn't more. Now finish your breakfast and make sure to be on time for classes." With a swish of her cloak, she headed back to the staff table._

Nami stalked heatedly to the farthest seat from Sirius and pulled it back with such force it slammed into the floor. She brought it back with a wave of her wand and sat down, muttering "I get in trouble for being the victim of a prank, and it's all that prick's fault. I was only acting on instinct!" Lily sat down next to her and Chloe across, both with sympathetic looks on their faces, though Chloe's hinted a bit of fright in case Nami decided to explode again. Man, that girl was scary when she was mad.

"It wasn't the worst of his pranks, Nami," Chloe reassured, wordlessly urging her friend to eat. "We've seen worse."

Lily was trying (and failing) to undo the curse, but the horrid neon green simply would not fade back into black. "He must've done a Repelling Charm after the curse was activated; everything seems to be bouncing off it…" 

"Then do the countercurse for the blasted charm!" Nami cried, looking like she was on the verge of tearing out her hair. 

Lily shook her head. "I can't….you can't just undo charms like this one, you have to wait for the effects to fade…"

"_Well? How long is that?"_

"It can range from ten minutes to a month, depending on the complexity of the charm," Lily replied patiently. 

"A month! I can't live with this hair for a month! I might as well shave my head!" Nami complained. 

Lily sighed. "Nami… You sound like Chloe in one of her melodramatic woes…" 

That shut Nami up. "Oi!" Chloe cried indignantly. 

"Need a hand?" a smug voice said behind them. All three looked up at the source of the voice. 

"James Potter," Nami said, her tone inauspicious, "You seem to know something, and if your lunatic mate isn't going to do the countercurse, you sure as hell will. Unless you _want to go to Black's funeral much earlier than you expected." _

James held up his hands in front of him. "Whoa, take it easy. I _was _going to help, you know. It's just that I thought that Lily would be able to undo the curse, since she's so brilliant at charms and everything," he answered nonchalantly, smiling innocently at Lily. He could swear that a look of irritation passed her delicate features. 

"Well then, I'm sorry I don't live up to your expectations of me, Potter," Lily snapped. 

Chloe's eyes widened, and Nami dropped her hands from entangling with her hair. Lily never took on that tone with anybody…and she never called anybody by their last name, even the Slytherins. The only exception were the teachers, and she never forgot to add "Professor" to those, either—a title that most careless students didn't bother to add in when speaking to their friends. 

"Sorry. I was just giving you all the credit you deserve—it _is_ true that you're the best in Charms, you can't deny that," James stated, though his tone didn't imply whether he was mocking or being genuinely sincere. Either way, none of them could argue with that. 

There was silence for a moment, before Nami spoke up, "Hello? Let's get on with it, I don't want to be stuck looking like Bozo the Clown all day!" 

*****  

Lily reached her dormitory room and put her school things aside on top of her trunk. Thank Merlin it was Friday. She didn't want to be burdened with homework when all she wanted to do was be alone and think. 

And that was what she did, when she was sure that her friends wouldn't be back for at least another hour and wouldn't wonder where she had gone. She took her cloak and went swiftly down to the common room, past two preoccupied second years who were playing wizard chess ("Go smash that bishop, it'll pay for beating my knight into a pulp!"), and through the portrait hole. The best place she liked to go to sort out her thoughts was out on the grounds, on a nice patch of grass near the lake. Preferably under a tree, where she could huddle under and be blocked from the view of other students who decided to take a stroll outside. 

The sky was a dull gray, signaling the coming of rain in a few hours, but Lily didn't mind. She walked to a secluded part of the lake's bank, where she was safe from all other human contact, and sat down, staring over the azure waters. 

Everything had become too much for her to handle. What was so unacceptable with doing what was right? Was it so wrong to be friendly, and to top all her classes, and to do her best in everything? 

Apparently James Potter thought so, and he seemed to be the only one who did. 

Why did he have to bother her? She hadn't done anything to him. She was always polite, she respected his easy command of all the things they learned in classes, and although she quite disagreed with his and his friends' habit of pulling pranks on people, she accepted that it was part of who they were, and she never flew off the handle or got fed up with their endless mischief, but gave them warnings and left it to the higher authorities to handle their consequences. 

She always gave it her full effort to be faultless at what she did. She had her reasons. So many people expected much of her…and she did her best to reach those expectations. But the person who had the highest expectations of her was herself. She just had a thirst to prove herself, even though she already had, as her friends tried to assure her many times, but they never really convinced her. Maybe that was what led her to be stuck with this "perfect" image that Potter accused her of. He was so infuriating…

It was all too much; the burden of attempting to be good and acceptable to everyone was too much. Because of that she had snapped and lost her temper over an arrogant person who suddenly decided to poke his head into her business… 

If two wrongs don't make a right, did that mean that two rights don't make a wrong? Or do two rights _do make a wrong? _

She shook her head as if to clear it, all too confused. She was a perfectionist, that much was true. She admitted it to herself, and to her friends, who in turn told her that she wasn't the part at all, because she knew what it was like to be laidback and down-to-earth, and that perfectionists were nit-picking sticklers who were too fussy and intolerable. 

But she _was a perfectionist, in a light where she wanted her whole life to be perfect. And in a way she had accomplished that. If people took a glance at her they would know that she was a top student who was popular and well-liked, who had a nice personality and got along well with everybody, and was basically _golden. _But what they didn't know was that…_

She wasn't happy. 

Despite all the people who would have given anything to be in her position, she wished she had not run her life the way she did. She hated the fact that now she seemed only to be an actress in her own life, where she would wake up and look into the mirror and see somebody else, somebody who appeared flawless, somebody who everybody loved, somebody who wasn't _her. _Everyday she wished that she could just take off that mask and be somebody who was accepted for her flaws, who didn't have to pull an effort to be so nice all the time. She wished to wake up and for once and make a mistake that everybody would accept. She wished that she could march up to Potter and his friends and yell at them for being such prats and for their refusal to grow up and act mature for once. She wished that she could mess up in class and have her teachers know that she wasn't good at everything and that she wanted to get average marks at something. But most of all, she wished that she hadn't dug herself into a hole by being stuck to this role as the perfect person that she was not. 

She regretted shaping her life into a lie. She supposed that she really had become an actress. 

After all, an actress is only a girl who has the power to lie, is she not?*

She was tired of lying, but here she was. There was nothing she could do but continue the endless cycle.

But she was sure of one thing. If Potter riled her again, there was no holding back. She had always disliked him, although her _actress _side pushed away those negative thoughts because it was bad to hold a grudge against someone. But Potter was the one crossing the line here. She kept to her own business, and he decided to interfere. She deserved to let out her frustrations for once, didn't she? She was only human. And that was what Potter wanted, to make everyone see that she could lose her temper. 

Well, she could give him that satisfaction. And once she did, he would leave her alone. She would go back to her normal, perfect self. Or at least, her normal, perfect, _illusory self. She was Lily Evans, the all-around perfectionist. And she would stay that way. _

It was starting to rain. The calm waters that had mesmerized her broke their stillness as fat little droplets broke the lake into thousands of ripples. 

She stood up and broke into a run, heading toward the safety and warmth of the castle.

*****  

It was raining hard, but that didn't dampen James's spirits. He had nettled Perfect Miss Evans today, although his prank hadn't worked out exactly as planned. It would have been better if it had been _her _hair that was enchanted into neon green, it would clash with her eyes. But he guessed he had to make do with what he got, so he was happy all the same. 

No, he wasn't trying to be a complete jerk by riling Lily like that; he just wanted to prove that the girl was _human. _Even her _friends didn't know that she was just putting up a mask. He doubted she would admit it even to herself. He shook his head. That redhead certainly had issues. Once she confessed that she wasn't all she was cracked up to be, he would teach her what __real living was like, not pretending to be someone you didn't want to be. _

Wait a minute. Did he just say that he was going to _help _her figure this all out? Nope, that was just a slip. He was helping her enough, making her realize that she shouldn't try to be perfect. 

There was more to Lily Evans than met the eye. He knew these kinds of things—you could say that he was rather perceptive. He was sure that Lily would probably hate him for attempting to get her mad and all, but someday she would thank him. He didn't like her a whole lot, but she should be glad that he was doing her a favor…getting to pull pranks on her and annoy her was just a bonus… What? It was! 

He sighed, feeling a little ridiculous with contradicting himself. He had been sitting in the Great Hall for almost an hour and a half after dinner, just thinking, and finally decided to leave when he saw that only a few gluttonous Slytherins remained, stuffing up all the food at their table before they would magically clear themselves in another half hour. 

He walked out of the Hall, halfheartedly thinking about doing his Herbology homework, when he caught sight of the front doors being opened a fraction. He turned and looked, wondering who would be crazy enough to go strolling around in this weather, when who should he see but the great Lily Evans herself, shivering and sopping wet. 

"Hullo, Evans," he called, half-amused, as he watched her trailing a rivulet of water in her wake. He decided to call her by last-name terms, nobody but the teachers did that, and she had started doing the same with him after his little quip at breakfast. He just knew that she had a fiery side to her…she was a redhead, after all. 

Lily stopped and glanced at him, and he thought he saw a scowl on her face before it returned to an indifferent expression. "Potter." She walked past him in the direction of the Gryffindor tower. 

James, not wanting to miss a convenient opportunity to grate on her nerves, trotted beside her. "Nice weather, isn't it? Is that why you were jogging outside?" he commented offhandedly, gesturing at one of the narrow windows lining the hall they were passing through. 

"Why, Potter, I would have thought that a person as charismatic and witty as yourself would have better things to talk about than the weather," Lily retorted, wringing out her dripping hair.

James glanced quizzically from her to the mess she was making all over the floor—didn't she know that Filch would throw a fit once he saw that? "Er…Evans, as much as I enjoy taking a stroll through the castle with you, you do know that you're a prefect and you shouldn't be traipsing around and muddying the halls, don't you?"

Lily sighed, as if in resignation, and said in clipped tones, "Frankly, I don't care." She proceeded to squeezing the water out of her robes and cloak. 

This sudden change in attitude was more than he had bargained for. "It'd save you a lot of trouble if you just dried yourself magically," he suggested in a slightly patronizing tone, watching Lily wring her sleeves out. 

"Well, yeah, I _would, you know, except there's this tiny little fact that I don't have my wand with me," Lily shot back, glaring at him. _

"I was just trying to help. No need to jump down my throat," he said defensively, while secretly pleased that he was making progress. Lily Evans, glaring…this was priceless, he should have brought a camera… He noticed that her eyes turned a deeper shade of green when she was mad. He caught himself staring at her and quickly looked away. He tried to reassure himself that he had only done so because he—or anyone else in the school, for that matter—had never seen the redhead mad and it was quite an interesting sight.

He wasn't sure that he was completely convinced, though. She was very pretty. Even now, when her whole person was drenched with rain water and she had a scowl on her face, she still managed to look beautiful. 

Just one more reason to be irritated with her.

"Isn't that what you want, though?" Lily said quietly after a moment. She must have noticed that she had lost control, and was trying to maintain her indifferent tones. "To get me mad?"

James was taken aback, clearly surprised that his intentions had been found out so easily. "Why would you say that?" he asked in false surprise, though he was a bit unnerved that she could read his purpose in just two days. 

Lily was silent and didn't look at him. They rounded the corner into a drafty corridor, where she ran a few paces ahead of him. He didn't bother catching up. A breeze found its way in through the open window and the girl in front of him shivered in her wet clothes. 

At that moment he felt as if she were vulnerable, her defenses completely down. She didn't look at all like her usual poised self, where she was completely in control and composed, which was how most people saw her. 

He did a complicated movement with his wand and muttered a spell before slipping through a hidden door behind one of the many tapestries lining the walls. 

Lily felt warm air coursing around her, and in seconds her clothes and hair were bone-dry. She stood stock-still and turned around, expecting to see James Potter's smirking face that would clearly mean "I just took pity on you, and I'm one up." But there was no one. 

The corners of her mouth lifted in a smile and she walked the remaining passages back to the Gryffindor tower. 

***** 

**~ A/N ~**

*Aniiston said something like this…I don't know if she made it up or read it somewhere, but I just wanted to clarify that the essence of the statement isn't mine…

Thank you to my reviewers! Now I don't feel like such a loser anymore! ^o^


	3. Public Spectacles and Detention

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

_"There are two freedoms, the false where one is free to do what he likes, and the true where he is free to do what he ought."_

_~Charles Kingsley_

**Chapter 3: Public Spectacles and Detention**

The clock on Lily's bedside table read 10:00. After she had gone back to the Gryffindor tower from her trip to the lake, she warmed up a bit by the common room fire and gone back to the Great Hall to eat a quick dinner. When she finally came up to her dorm room at around 8:30, she had found Chloe fast asleep at her writing desk, her head resting on her unfinished Transfiguration essay. Lily wondered where Nami was; her friend was supposed to go to McGonagall's office with Sirius at eight o'clock to discuss their detentions. Where on earth could that girl still be after two hours?

As if answering her question, Nami stumbled into the room, looking quite out of breath and disheveled. Her usually silky black hair was matted, there were a number of rips on her school robes, her face was wearing a scowl, and…she had gigantic bird feet, horribly reminding Lily of Big Bird from Sesame Street. 

"What happened?" Lily asked with a gasp, scurrying over to Nami. 

Nami's expression, if possible, became even sourer, and she simply answered, "Had a friendly little chat with Black." She walked over to her bed and sat down, waiting for Lily to fetch her own wand and transfigure her feet back to normal. 

_Well, that explains it, _Lily thought, as she snatched her wand from the top of her trunk, scanned her memory for the particular curse that Sirius Black may have used, and promptly executed the exact countercurse. "When did you start fighting?"

Nami sighed in relief as she watched her talons turn back into toes. "I've been waging a war with that prat for five years now, but if you're talking about our most recent fight, it started at approximately fifteen minutes after eight," Nami replied, sarcasm and ire in her tone as she clearly went back through every moment of the incident.

Lily smiled sympathetically, then decided to go for a more encouraging approach. "In that case…if he did _this_ to you, then what did you do to _him_?" she inquired to her Asian friend as she progressed to repairing the various tears in Nami's robes. 

"Oh, I didn't get to do much. As much as I loathe him, I can't deny that he's brilliant at spellwork and curses," Nami admitted grudgingly. Her face broke into a gratified grin, however, as she said smugly, "I managed to turn his mouth and nose into what looked like an aardvark's snout, though, and he didn't know the countercurse to that one so he had to trot up to the hospital wing with his proboscis swinging all over the place." 

Lily nodded, smiling briefly at the mental image of Sirius with a long snout. But then she remembered something else, and the humor of the moment dissipated as quickly as it had come. "Wait, did you say _8:15__? If you'd just had a meeting with McGonagall at eight, then you must've started hurling curses at each other right outside her office door!" _

Nami made a face. "He was the idiot who started it. You'd think he'd have the brains to at least get a 2-mile distance between him and McGonagall when he decides to go on a hex craze, but nooo, he had to let us both get worse detentions—something with the possibility of certain death—"

"_What?" Lily almost-shouted. _

"We were supposed to work on different sides of the castle, dusting statues on the fourth floor," Nami reiterated, "but McGonagall flew into a rage when we attempted to murder each other right outside her office—so she's making us go do something in the Forbidden Forest next Friday night…_together._" Nami shuddered, as if the prospect of doing a detention with Sirius Black overshadowed the fact that the Forbidden Forest was one of the most dangerous places in the magical world in Britain. 

"It can't be _that bad…you'd be able to fend yourselves off of any dangerous creatures that may cross your path…just try not to start a hexing match in the middle of the forest," Lily suggested, hoping to pacify her friend before she went into an all-out rant on the curse of Sirius Black being born into the earth._

Nami snorted indelicately. "Did I mention that they're going to confiscate our wands before we go in?"

This time Lily really did scream out "WHAT!" What hope would they have inside the forest if they didn't even have their wands? They'd be defenseless; they'd probably be torn apart by all the wild creatures there—

"I suppose McGonagall thinks that there would be a bigger chance of us having our wands and killing each other, than not having our wands and being eaten by werewolves or anything else of the sort…" Nami mused mirthlessly. 

Lily decided to keep silent. After Nami had entertained that thought, the redhead changed her mind and knew it was entirely probable. In fact, it was very likely… "Well, try not to think about it too much. You've still got a week to enjoy life, right?" she joked. 

"Very encouraging, Lil. Take _his _side," Nami said, pretending to be offended. "I'm off to take a shower…who knows what diseases I might have incurred while being within a five-foot radius of Black for almost two hours…"

Nami stood up and headed for the bathroom, leaving Lily to ponder whether or not _she should share about her own encounter with one of the marauders. She shook her head and decided to turn in. She levitated Chloe to her own bed first; the girl usually slept like a rock and nothing would wake her unless her own body chose to do so. _

As Lily tried to get into a more comfortable position in her bed, it suddenly occurred to her that not even her best friends knew the _real _her…that they were there for her actress side, who was a person who was near-perfect. They had never gotten to know the real Lily, who held nothing back when she lost her temper, who didn't want to be perfect, who was itching to be free from this façade that she had long ago put up. Who would never appear before them…because she had vowed not to. 

She had vowed it because of certain reasons, but most of all she vowed it to herself. And Lily Evans never broke her promises…

How very wrong she was. 

*****  

The next day, Saturday, was a fairly uneventful one so far, as the morning drew to a close. Lily and her two best friends were in the library, all with different purposes. Lily was trying to get ahead in Arithmancy, so she was currently divulging information from extremely thick books, taking down occasional notes in a roll of parchment. Chloe was finishing her Transfiguration essay from the night before, and Nami was looking up various books relating to curses and hexes. 

"What'd you get, Nami?" Chloe asked absentmindedly as Nami returned to their table, her arms loaded with volumes ranging from _Common Jinxes: Are they Really That Simple? _to _The Complete Guide to Curses: From Jelly Legs to Avada Kedavra. _

"Research material," Nami said breathlessly, dropping the books unceremoniously onto the table as if they were red-hot rocks. Madame Pince glared at her, obviously not too keen with her preferred way of treating the librarian's beloved books. 

Lily glanced up from her note-taking. "But we're not discussing hexes and curses yet in Defense against the Dark Arts," she pointed out, albeit a bit suspiciously. 

"I didn't say it was schoolwork," Nami countered, cracking open _What__ Makes Wizard Duels Go Bad. "I will find out every possible way to maim and injure Black before Friday, so that he would be physically incapacitated and will have to reschedule his detention for another day." She seemed quite contented with her plan, and set to poring over her book with as much fervency as Lily did when she was researching something for Charms. _

"Oh, that's nice. You'd rather scour through the Forbidden Forest by yourself, then?" Lily asked, not quite pleased with her friend's selection of books. 

Chloe dropped her quill. "Forbidden Forest? You never told me anything about that," she said with a frown. 

Nami shrugged. "It was just yesterday, and you were asleep by then—"

"Well, get a move on, tell me all about it," Chloe interjected, abandoning all attempts of wrapping up her essay. 

Lily, sensing where this was going, said hurriedly, "Er, I think I've got enough information on next week's lesson, I'll just see you guys later." She strode away from their table and out of the library, knowing that Nami would undoubtedly end her story-telling with a tirade on Sirius Black's negative aspects, and that Madame Pince would then kick both her and Chloe out of the library. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt for not dragging Chloe along with her, but then Chloe was the one who had insisted Nami on filling her in. 

Thinking about a place to go while she waited for her friends to get out of the inevitable harangue that awaited them, she went down to the first floor and wandered around. After walking for a few minutes she noticed that she must have made a wrong turn; she recognized none of the paintings and tapestries on the walls, and there were no doors and windows lining the hall. 

She continued walking, cursing her bad luck and her sudden loss of her sense of direction. Finally, after walking for what seemed like hours, she reached a door, which was directly in front of her and ended the corridor. She opened it and went through, hoping that when she did, she would be somewhere familiar. 

She wasn't. What she entered wasn't even a room; it seemed as if somebody had just decided to plant a door in the middle of the corridor and once you got to the other side of it, you would just be in the same one-way passage, whose end you couldn't make out. She could decide to walk all the way back to where she came from, but she might feel stupid if she didn't walk on for just a bit and find another door or an intersection that would lead her back to one of the corridors she knew so well. So she walked on, in the narrow, windowless corridor, feeling as if this were some enchantment of the castle where the passage was never-ending. Just as she thought that she should turn back, she came to a fork, where the straight path she had been following ended in a wall, and two different paths leading to the left and right. 

The absence of people in this place made her feel a bit creeped out, and she shivered, going with her instinct and choosing the left route. She strode only about a dozen steps when she reached an intersection. She looked around for landmarks, but there were none. Even the tapestries and paintings she had passed had run out, and she started to feel panicked, realizing she was lost. Lost in a maze of endless corridors in a magical castle with too many secrets and unsolvable mysteries. 

She decided to head back from whence she came, but as she retraced her steps, she reached another intersection. She swore that it had only been a fork when she had passed through it! As she stood stock-still, positively terrified at the possibility of being stuck here and being lost forever, she felt a presence just about five yards behind her. But she sensed something bad about the presence and the first thing that came into her mind was, _Run_. Run, Lily. __

And she did, sprinting through even more corridors, hurling through corners, left, right, straight, left again, left again… No matter where she went, that…that _thing was always just a few paces behind her, pursuing, attempting to snatch her into its grip…_

She was in a labyrinth. She finally figured it out. The blur of walls that she passed sometimes seemed familiar, as if she had gone round a certain bend before, as if she were going around in circles…

She couldn't take it anymore; she felt as if her feet were on fire. She tripped and fell, and the thing behind her advanced toward her sprawled figure. It laid a hand on her shoulder, and it was then that she screamed…

"Evans?" 

Lily lowered her hands from her eyes, looking up at James Potter's looming face. His _smirking face. Ugh, that seriously irritated her… She sat up and glanced at her surroundings…they weren't in a narrow corridor…the room they were in could probably hold about four hundred people…the ceiling was enchanted to look like the morning sky…_

The Great Hall. She was in the Great Hall…

"W-what happened?" she said shakily, hating the way her voice sounded so weak. 

James opened his mouth, then closed it again. His expression went from concerned to amused, and he smirked. "Ah, well…it was…nothing."

Lily immediately felt suspicion rising up in her. She stood up, giving James Potter the coldest glare she could manage (she hadn't done it for the longest time; she had almost forgotten what it was like to glower at a person). "I was in a freaking maze, I felt a…a _monster _chasing me down, I was scared out of my wits and suddenly I'm _magically _transported to the Great Hall…and you call it _nothing? What the hell did you do, Potter?!" She was practically shouting now and James looked just this side of surprised. But then…was that a __pleased look in his eyes? _

"As I said, it was nothing… Not anything worth telling, anyway," he continued to say vaguely, now grinning at her as she rapidly lost composure. 

"OUT WITH IT, POTTER!" Lily screamed. The absolute _colossal _nerve… No, it was too much; she had kept her temper bottled inside her long enough. She never did anything wrong to him and now he was using her as another of his prank victims… 

James was looking quite smug, and Lily wanted more than anything to wipe it off his arrogant face. She had thought that he wasn't all that bad yesterday… The rain must have done something to her then that made her think of that impossibility…

"_Well?" Lily said dangerously, positive that she was going to take a leaf out of Nami's book and hex the most hateful male she knew into oblivion… _

James sighed, as if Lily's tone of voice was annoying rather than life-threatening. "Fine, if you really want to know… I was trying out a new spell, and the Great Hall is the only place I know of inside the castle that has a big enough space to accommodate it. I went out for a second to do something else; I assumed that the Slytherins would be the first to step inside the Hall because they're always early for lunch—you know how they stuff all that food in as if they were going to die the next day—"

"Get to the point," Lily snapped.

"Impatient, aren't we?" James remarked, rolling his eyes, before continuing. "Well, to make a long story short, you were the one who went in and got subjected to the spell first, which means that you would think you were in a labyrinth with no way out. You're to be trapped in your own head and in reality there's no maze at all, so anybody who would be looking at you will just think that you're running around in circles, screaming madly. It did look pretty funny," he added, smirking at Lily as he clearly recalled the way she'd been darting around, panicking. 

Lily's eyes widened in appalled rage. "_Funny? You thought that was amusing, Potter?! Is this how you play pranks on people, thinking that seeing them terrified is entertaining?! Well, let me enlighten you! You are nothing but an arrogant, overconfident prick who lets the fame get to his head! Your idea of having fun is to make other people miserable, which is nothing short of cruel! You deem yourself worthy to be worshipped by people, when all you are, is a supercilious, insensitive jerk!" She stopped to draw her breath, never taking off the look of death that she was giving him. _

For a moment James looked completely shocked. Lily's face was flushed with anger, her lips were thin and twisted into a scowl, and her usually gentle emerald eyes were narrowed to slits and practically spitted sparks as she glowered at him. It was a complete change—this was massive compared to what he had provoked yesterday. 

"Well, Potter? Do you have any other snide remarks to share?" Lily spat out disgustedly, still looking at him like he was the scum of the earth. 

James snapped out of his stunned stupor and smirked at her, which irritated her even more. "Just one," he retorted in a mock-innocent tone. He tilted his head to the left, in the direction of the entrance to the Great Hall. "We've got company." 

*****  

Lily's face went from red to white as she turned her head, seeing dozens of faces that flinched simultaneously as her eyes rested upon them. 

James also contented himself with looking at their audience. It seemed as if the entire student body had come just in time to witness perfect Lily Evans explode, which wasn't something you saw everyday. And in their case, it was something they never _had seen. He almost didn't care about the fact that Lily had insulted him in front of all that people and he hadn't bothered to formulate an equally scathing retort. This was what he had been trying to do in the last few days, and in the eyes of all the people watching it was proof that James Potter could do anything. He could perform N.E.W.T. level spells with ease, he could plan a prank so brilliantly that there would be no evidence that he was the one who pulled it (though he only bothered to do that once before, because he liked to take the credit for his efforts), he could hex people in the hallways and _still_ have lots of fans worshipping the ground he walked on, and he could even make the most angelic person in Hogwarts lose her head completely… "Sorry, did you need anything?" _

A disinterested-looking seventh year Slytherin (who was just saving face because he too had been caught staring at the enraged Lily, his mouth agape) said, "We came here to eat our lunch, although we knew not that an…argument was going to take place." He scanned the surrounding area distastefully. The five long tables that occupied the Great Hall were up against the walls, all the chairs were piled haphazardly in a corner, and no food was in sight.

"Oh, that," James said, looking at the Slytherin with equal disdain. He waved his wand and the tables flew to their proper places. Another wave, and the food appeared on the tables. Just as a few hungry Slytherins dashed in to get their hands on the lot, James lazily flicked his wand again and all the chairs shot out of the pile, flying around randomly to their places and hitting the Slytherins upside the head as they went. In all the confusion, Lily managed to slip past the mob unnoticed and went out onto the grounds where she could find solitude. 

By the time the teachers filed into the Great Hall after an unusually long staff meeting, thereby making them late for lunch, everything was back to normal: the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were eating contentedly and chatting animatedly, and the Slytherins were howling in pain. 

None of the latecomers noticed that a redheaded prefect was missing in action. 

*****  

"Chloe, if _that will not turn you off James Potter, then I don't know what will," Nami said, still feeling a little shaky after Lily's outburst. _

Chloe shifted in her seat uncomfortably as she speared a roast potato with her fork. "Well, you never know. He might have just cast a Confundus Charm on Lily that made her go all berserk," she suggested. They had only gotten there (along with everyone else) when Lily was yelling at James about being an insufferable prick, and hadn't known the real reason why she had done so. 

"Isn't that enough reason to hate him, then?" Nami shot back, starting to become exasperated at her friend's hopeless infatuation. She could be looking for Lily right now, instead of having this conversation…but she knew that Lily would want to be alone for awhile, though she wasn't exactly certain. After all, she had never seen her friend act that way before…she had never seen Lily be that _upset before. The redhead always had a smile on her face, and she was nice to everybody, even to Sirius Black, who, in Nami's opinion, didn't deserve an inkling of respect. Well, she couldn't exactly argue with that, as it wasn't the redhead who got her hair transfigured into her worst nightmare…_

Chloe, noticing that Nami was a little preoccupied with her thoughts, launched into a plausible theory on what James Potter had done, and why.  "I didn't say he did it on purpose. He might have accidentally—"

"Never mind," Nami interrupted, holding up a hand. "We have no time to be bickering like this. Let's just finish up lunch as fast as we can and then we'll go find Lily." _She should be up for some company by then, she added silently, wondering where her friend could be. _

"You're right," Chloe agreed, relieved that Nami was no longer in the mood to argue. "If it makes you feel better, I _did_ think James was being a tad pricky, if he could set off Lily like that…" The blonde could see her friend shaking her head, as if ready to say "A _tad? You are impossible, my friend…"_

But she didn't, and Chloe was grateful for that. She did have her ethics, and what she believed in was that friends came first before boys. And Lily was definitely worth more than any crush. She just hoped that Lily wouldn't catch Nami's disease and turn into James Potter's worst enemy by being consumed with hate for him and having the reflex action of hexing him whenever he looked at her funny. 

*****  

"What did you do, Prongs? What did you do?" Sirius moaned, being uncharacteristically fussy in his actions. They were currently eating lunch, and Sirius was emphasizing his point by waving a chicken leg in the air as he spoke.

James rolled his eyes in exasperation. "She accidentally walked in on the curse we were doing for a prank! Now, stop acting like…like a persnickety nit-picker, I'm seriously starting to worry about your mental health…" When Sirius did nothing to ease James's mind, he added, "You're just like my mum when she laments over her nails not being the same tones of pink when she gets a Muggle manicurist to do them and the nail polish is just a slight bit too thickly applied." 

Sirius stopped whining and became all…serious (no pun intended). "Well, what curse did you pick that made you need the entire Great Hall to cast it on?" 

"How can you walk in on a curse? Don't you have to cast it on somebody?" Peter asked through a mouthful of food, confused. 

"It was the Labyrinth Curse, and you need to cast it on a large enough place, so whoever goes there will be subjected to its effects," James answered both questions impatiently. "Padfoot, you were the one who _told _me to do that, because you were the one who researched it and formulated the plan in your head in the first place! Stop asking rhetorical questions."

"I didn't exactly ask you to let Lily Evans be the first victim of it!" Sirius retorted. His face paled at a sudden realization. "Wait, if she finds out that it was _my idea to do that prank, then she's going to kill __me! Then I'll have __two of the most popular girls in school after my head!" _

Remus, who had remained quiet all this time, just eating his food in peace, groaned. "Seriously, Padfoot, will you act _normal_? Prongs isn't the only one who's worried about your state of mind…"

Sirius scowled at him. "I was just being _overdramatic_," he said.

"Well, being _overdramatic doesn't suit you," Remus responded calmly. _

"Fine! I was _acting_ overdramatic! Can't you take a joke? Or can you not recognize sarcasm when you see it? And Prongs, if Lily does find out that it was all my idea, tell her that it wasn't intended for her and that it's your entire fault that you didn't do the countercurse right away." Sirius rubbed his temples, feigning annoyance at his friends' inquiries on the stability of his sensibility. "And I'm perfectly sane, thank you very much."

"It wasn't my fault that she strolled in uninvited! She wasn't even supposed to be there!" James protested. 

"Yes, it was unexpected, but by the way she was screaming her lungs out at you, I'd assume that you didn't take the curse off her immediately," Remus replied. 

James sighed, feeling his triumph at being successful in making Evans mad ebbing away with every accusation his friends made. "I'm _sorry, _okay?! If you want, I'll stop getting on her wick. I've proven my point already."

Remus shook his head. "You don't have to apologize to me, you have to apologize to Lily. She deserves it, James. But I don't see why you think she deserves to be a victim of a prank that we intended for the Slytherins." He stood up and left. 

James stared after him. 

"Now you've done it! Even Moony's mad at you!!! How are we supposed to keep him company during the full moon when he's angry?!" Sirius exclaimed, saying the last sentence in a much softer and barely audible tone. 

"Sirius?" James said, sighing. 

"What?" Sirius answered.

_"Shut up!" _

*****  

Lily buried her head in her hands as she sat down in the same spot that she had yesterday. Now she had done it. She had broken her temper, she had let out all the feelings that she had kept trapped inside her for so long… But why did she have to do it in front of a crowd? Why did she have to lose herself with so many people watching? 

She sighed, blinking back the tears of frustration building up at the corners of her eyes. Damn that James Potter… 

It was all for nothing. She had spent all those years being kind, being patient, giving the best that she could do…and it could all be ruined in a single moment. She had worked so hard for that perfect reputation, and now it was shattered by a single flaw… A single flaw that, no matter how hard she chased it away from her "acting" side, would never be hidden for long… 

Everything was irreversible… She couldn't cast Memory Charms on practically all the students occupying Hogwarts just like that. They weren't even supposed to _be there; she had checked her watch and it had only been 11:45 when she had her little outburst with Potter… Surely none of the students, save for a few die-hard food fans, would be that eager to eat lunch? All of it was very curious… But not as curious as Potter's sudden interest in making her life hell…_

Ugh! Just thinking about his name made her feel like shouting again! She had never abhorred a person so strongly, in so little time, but her dreams, her ethics, her self-made promises were on the line here, and he had made it all crumble into dust with just a single well-placed enchantment. Lily hated making mistakes…but for a reason that she dared not share with anyone. But above her hate for her flaws, she hated the feeling of being lost, of having nowhere to turn, of being all alone in a place where she would be trapped in her own mind…

Like all the horrible dreams that she had all the time, that had grown in frequency these past few days…

_No, don't dwell on that, it's not something you should think about, _Lily ordered herself, shutting her eyes tightly and trying to block out the flashes of terrible images in her head. But she found herself being pulled into thinking of those dreams again, how her dream self relieved the worst moments in her life—

"Hey, Lily." 

Lily's eyes flew open, and the images drifted back to the back of her mind. She had never been so grateful to hear Nami's voice. She turned around and looked up at her friend, who was standing and carrying a plate filled with fried chicken, buttered carrot-and-corn, and a bit of every food that was on the lunch menu that day. Nami plopped down next to Lily and handed her the plate. "Thanks."

"No problem," Nami said, smiling at her. "So…you feeling okay now?"

Lily nodded, feeling a bit embarrassed as it occurred to her that Nami probably was one of the many spectators of the scene she had made. "Much. Where's Chloe?"

Nami shrugged. "Don't know. We split up to find you faster. She's probably in the castle somewhere," she replied, gesturing at Hogwarts, which looked like a toy castle from their viewpoint. 

"How did you find me?" 

The Asian girl smirked. "It was easy. I was wandering around the Charms corridor when I bumped into Black. Well, it doesn't take two heads to figure out that he had something to do with what James did, so I threatened him to tell everything and even got him to show me that map he and his friends made that tells where people are in Hogwarts," she said happily. 

Lily raised her eyebrows. "And he willingly complied?" she asked dubiously. 

Nami twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "Let's just say that I…convinced him." She grinned at Lily. "How about we get off this rather distasteful topic of discussing Black and move on to greener pastures?" 

"Like what?" 

"Like…how James Potter and his little friends got the whole student body at the doorway of the Great Hall all at the same time!" 

Lily scowled at her. "Yes, we've definitely moved on to greener pastures," she remarked sardonically. 

"Oh, don't be such a grouch. This way, you can know the truth without any twists in it, and cover all the angles so that you can find out the perfect way to get revenge on James," Nami said matter-of-factly. 

"Who said I was going to get back at him?" Lily challenged, knowing that Nami had no clue how she acted when she was angry, simply because she had never shown her angry side before. 

Nami shrugged, smiling knowingly at the redhead. "By the way you were about to kill him just an hour ago—and maybe you would have if you didn't find out that you had an audience—who would believe that you won't take this lying down?" 

Lily nodded. "Good point. I suppose I'll list down the best ways to murder James Potter later."

"That's the spirit. I'll gladly help you later, though I don't think Chloe will be too happy with what we're going to do," Nami commented, thinking about their blonde friend and wondering whether she found out that they were by the lake right now. "For now, let me just fill you in. This was James's and his friends' plan: Remus Lupin went down to the kitchens to fiddle a bit with the usual pumpkin juice at breakfast; he added some sort of potion into all of the Houses' shares to make them feel hungry at exactly 11:35 a.m., don't ask me how, or what potion it was. He made a special one for the Slytherins, of course, and their potion was to make them a bit earlier for lunch than the rest, which was around 11:30. James would go to the Great Hall, clear it up, and cast a Labyrinth Curse on it. Meanwhile, his three friends would split up and talk to a member of each House except Slytherin—to tell them that they were pretty hungry and suggest that maybe they should go over to the Great Hall since the teachers probably wouldn't mind them being a little early. This was their way of making sure that everyone would be on time to see the Slytherins running all around the Hall, screaming like babies, trapped in a nightmare that no one else could see. Apparently it would look very entertaining if it went as planned," she ended wryly. 

"I left the library at 11:00…" Lily remembered vaguely as things started to click in place.

"Yes, and I don't know what on earth you were intending to do in the Great Hall at that time, but since you were the one who entered the Great Hall first, the spell was cast on you. I assume that James didn't take the curse off you at once, so you started yelling at him, and by the time the Slytherins got there, they figured out that James had planned something and it backfired, so they just stood back and watched. The same goes with the rest of us." Nami shrugged. "Don't worry about it so much. It'll all blow over sometime, even though it came as a shock to a lot of people. You should just occupy yourself with thinking about the most elegant way to disembowel James Potter…"

Lily smiled, her mood lifting slightly. She was glad with the way her friend had gone out of her way to make her feel better...and she was grateful for that. She was grateful to a lot of people who respected her and didn't hold nonexistent grudges against her.

But James Potter wasn't a lot of people. And he would be the only exception who would get a taste of the wrath that Lily Evans rarely showed anybody, if ever, at all. 

She had a feeling that what she showed to the other students today wasn't going to be a one-time incident. 


	4. All Hell Breaks Loose

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

_"To hate fatigues."___

_~Jean Rostand_

**Chapter 4: All Hell Breaks Loose**

As was inevitable at Hogwarts, the word that Lily Evans had finally broken her nicey-nice personality transformed into many rumors, ranging from tame to far-fetched. It came to a point that most of the eyewitness—which pretty much consisted of the whole student body—started to believe in their own exaggerated versions. The more rational people talked about the truth with just a tad of embellishment, while those who were more than a little bit shocked started blathering that Lily Evans and James Potter were in the middle of a mock wizard duel and Lily was shouting at James for trying to kill her on purpose. Others, who were rather keen to listen to (and believe) this storyline, claimed that James had forced Lily to drink basilisk poison and that she had, in a delirious manner because of the white-hot pain, cursed at him and screamed out insults. 

They seemed to have forgotten that Lily and James both looked perfectly unharmed, that they had their wands in their pockets, that James was not holding a goblet with the remains of a fatal liquid, and that Lily was not writhing on the floor in unbearable agony. 

Of course, it all blew over at dinner that same day, when both parties in question had come to the Great Hall separately and sat down at the Gryffindor table, where they chatted with their friends and appeared perfectly normal. The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was when, for a split second, James's and Lily's eyes met, and Lily shot him a cool glare. Now, as every person in the Hall (yes, even the Slytherins and professors—the latter being immensely curious as to why the students were being unusually quiet) was waiting with bated breath for one of them to do something, this was quite gratifying for them. It might have become more interesting if one of Lily's friends hadn't noticed that everybody was staring at the redhead, and hadn't whisked her off out of the Hall. New theories had arisen, including a very amusing one that circulated, stating that Lily and James were having a secret affair and had broken up quite nastily, leaving their relationship with each other cold and loathsome. 

The marauders (except James) were greatly humored by that piece of made-up news, and constantly harassed James for his "secret longing" for Lily. Lily's friends took the matter seriously, however. Chloe was constantly trying to keep a brave front with every "James likes Lily?" that she heard in the corridors, and Nami was constantly trying to persuade people that nothing, nada, _zilch, was going on between James and Lily, except a mutual hatred that even she couldn't understand. _

By Friday, all speculations had finally died down, and the only thing that remained was the fact that Lily Evans was still the angel that she was, save when her eyes landed on James Potter, whereupon she would throw him dirty looks before turning back to her sweet self. James was just as annoyed at her as she was to him, and took great pleasure in making her extremely angry, whenever he had the chance.

For instance, during Transfiguration, James kept passing Lily notes that contained quotes that greatly irritated her in her current situation, like  "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything"* and "No perfection is so absolute, that some impurity doth not pollute."** __

Lily kept glaring at him as she threw back his notes in crumpled-up balls. "Potter, stop_ bugging me," she hissed across the aisle. She was very unfortunate to be sitting next to him in this class. Stupid seat plan. _

James merely smiled innocently at her and kept writing his little wiseass remarks. (A/N - Coming from him to Lily, she considers it that way. I am not trying to insult the people who quoted those statements.) 

When he lazily sent another piece of parchment her way, she didn't bother to read it. She crumpled it into a ball, tapped it with her wand, and chucked it at him, aiming for his shoulder. 

"OW!!!" James yelped, interrupting Professor McGonagall's lecture on Complex Switching Spells. 

The stern teacher gave him a piercing glare, her mouth curling into a displeased frown. "I believe this is no time for one of your overdramatic monologues, Potter. If you wish to entertain your friends, I suggest you take your stage outside, and leave those who are willing to learn in peace." For Sirius, Remus, and Peter were indeed sniggering, quick to note that Lily had put an Iron Charm on the paper ball, therefore making it become very painful to come into contact with a person's shoulder. They had decided that watching Lily and James fighting was much more appealing than listening to a lecture on Switching Spells.

James started to protest. "But Professor, Evans here—"

"Running to McGonagall for help, Potter?" Lily muttered, barely moving her lips so as McGonagall wouldn't notice. James immediately shut his mouth. 

Professor McGonagall's glare, if possible, became even colder. "Miss Evans is taking down notes and is intently listening to the lesson, Potter. I suggest you do the same." She turned back to the blackboard and began writing something for them to copy down. 

James glared at Lily, who gave him a sickly sweet smile that seemed all too familiar. 

*****  

"What did I do to deserve this?" Sirius muttered aloud as he and Nami strolled down the path inside the Forbidden Forest, looking for gold glowing flowers with little specks of white on them. 

Nami rolled her eyes, not looking too happy with this arrangement, either. "Gee, I don't know. Maybe… be a complete _prat_?" she answered sardonically, glaring at him. 

Sirius glared right back. "Nobody, not even a 'complete prat,' deserves to be stuck with _you on a detention in a dark, gloomy forest," he retorted. _

"Oh, so you admit that you _are a complete prat?" Nami asked mock-innocuously, smirking at him. _

Sirius, realizing his mistake, flushed a bit and narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't be so cocky if I had my wand with me…" he said threateningly. 

"As if, Black. I could take you on any day. If _I_ had my wand with me, you'd barely be alive. Foreign hexes can work outside the castle. You wouldn't stand a chance." She walked ahead of him, going back to searching for the plant they were supposed to get for the third year's Herbology session. 

Of course, you didn't expect Sirius Black to lie down and concede defeat after a remark like that. "If I had a wand I'd hex you until you could barely move and leave you here for some wild animal to chew off!"

"If I had a wand I'd transfigure you into a helpless little squirrel and take pleasure in watching you get eaten by a wild animal," Nami retaliated.

"I didn't know girls could think of such gruesome scenes," Sirius remarked dryly. 

"I invite you to read into my thoughts about you, then. It's filled with violent, gory fantasies about how you'd end up with your intestines sticking out and your fingernails being taken off one by one." 

"You are purely evil," Sirius growled, trying to block out the horrible mental image of himself in that state. 

Nami smiled saccharinely at him. "Thank you. I do try." She went a little bit off the path to squint at the dense foliage, and noticed Sirius still glowering at her at the corner of her eye. "For heaven's sake, Black, make yourself useful! You're the one who got us into this mess!" she snapped.

"Oh? Like you didn't curse me back there in McGonagall's office!" Sirius shot back.

"You started it!" 

"You inclined me to do it!"

"And how would I _incline you to do it when I was just __standing there, not even __looking at you?!" _

"The mere sight of your face makes me go into these sudden, uncontrollable urges to whip out my wand and hex you. Consider it a reflex action," Sirius said contemptuously. 

Nami laughed mirthlessly. "That's rich. Thank you, Black; you have just added 'permanent blindness' to my list of what hexes to do on you."

"Glad to be of service. That reminds me, you have added 'cruel and insufferable bitch' to my list of lovely names to call you." 

They stared daggers at each other a moment more, before Nami shouted at him, "Pretentious bastard!"

"Smug wench!"

"Prick!"

"Slut!"

"Imbecile!"

"Moron!"

"Chauvinist!"

"Helminthophobic!"***

Nami threw up her hands. "Will you forget about that?! That was six freakin' years ago!"

"I don't think I will, thanks," Sirius said smugly. "You know, maybe there are _giant worms here, think we should go look for them?"_

"Shut the hell up, Black!" Nami said angrily, paling slightly. "Why don't you just—get back to doing the detention, so that we can spare ourselves the extra moments of agony in each other's company?!"

"No, I'm on a roll here," Sirius replied, grinning evilly at her. "Why'd the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor anyway, when you're afraid of such a silly thing as _worms? It should've put you in Slytherin, you know, so that you'll get used to seeing slimy, slithering things—though I'm sure you could've been accepted in there straight away anyway, with that nice personality you've got—"_

"That's _it! You've tried my patience one too many times! I'll pummel you with my bare hands, if I have to!" Nami stalked toward him furiously. _

"Let's just see if you can, then!" Sirius smiled wickedly at her, took something out of his pocket, and flung it at her. Then he disappeared into the trees.

Nami's shriek pierced the quiet night as the fistful of magical, enlarged worms crawled all over her. 

*****  

Sad to say, Sirius and Nami weren't the only ones arguing with each other, their quarreling fueled with their mutual hatred. While they had chosen (not that they had any other options ^_^) their battlefield as the Forbidden Forest, two others started their fight inside the Gryffindor common room…

"Turn around and walk away, Potter," Lily said harshly, not looking up from her book. 

James stopped walking toward her for a second, before smirking and plopping down on the couch she was sitting on, just to ire her. 

Lily made a disgusted noise and scooted as far away from him as she could. "Did you not hear what I said? Or are you just that stupid?"

"It's my common room as much as it's yours," James pointed out in a patronizing air, as if Lily were being purposefully ignorant. "I think I'm entitled to sit wherever I want."

"Oh, so _that's why the first and second years had been picking fights with some sixth year idiot who kept chasing them out of the good armchairs these past few days," Lily said sarcastically, not deigning to look at him. _

James merely smiled. "You must have heard wrong; they gladly let me relieve them of their seats when I asked," he replied.

"After you threatened to transfigure them into rats for the rest of the evening, that is," Lily shot back, rolling her eyes. 

That wiped the smile off the bespectacled boy's face, but then he said in a smooth voice, "I just came here to ask you a question."

"Unfortunately for you, it will be left unanswered," snapped Lily.

"It's just one question. Can't you put down that dumb book for a couple of seconds?" 

Lily exhaled slowly and put her book down on her lap. "One, two." Then she went back to reading it and ignoring James.

"Oh, ha ha, you're hilarious, Evans," James said sarcastically. "Put down the book."

"You of all people have no right to make demands on me, _Potter,_" Lily replied acidly, saying his name as if it were a revolting swearword. 

James gave her a calculating stare, which she didn't bother to return. When he started to move and she thought that he would leave, he swiped the book from her hands and stood up, holding it high above his head with his right hand. 

"Give it here, Potter!" Lily shouted exasperatedly, her 5'5" form not sufficient to rival 6'2" James. The other Gryffindors lounging around, startled, turned to stare.

James pretended to give the matter serious consideration, before saying finally, "No…I don't think so."

"Hand it over, Potter, or I'll hex you!" Lily screamed at him.

James just smirked smugly. "With what? Your middle finger?" He held up his other hand, which had a firm grip on Lily's wand.  

"Potter, you jerk! Just give it back to me!" Lily jumped for her things, but to no avail. 

But James didn't heed to her wishes, and continued to hold her book and wand up just out of her reach. "Why don't you have a boyfriend?" 

The abruptness of the question made Lily freeze in place, and her hands fell limp at her sides. The whole common room was silent. 

"I mean, I get why a lot of guys would _die _just to go out with you—wait, actually I don't, because I despise you. In any case, I assumed that since you're so golden at everything and since you're the most popular girl in school, you would have snogged somebody at least once—"

There was a long pause, in which James anticipated Lily's explosion. "Give me my stuff," Lily interrupted, her voice dangerously quiet. Her eyes were cold as steel, and she fixed her gaze straight at him.

James suddenly found it hard to swallow. A furious Lily was one thing, but a cruel and emotionless Lily was something entirely unexpected. It was a little scary, and it was definitely something he never wanted to see again. He wordlessly handed back her wand and her book and stared after her retreating back as she made her way to the girls' dormitory. 

Everybody started moving again and returning to their normal conversations. James hated it when they did that—dropping whatever they were doing to witness a scene that involved him as if he were a star of a twisted soap opera. The price of popularity. You had tons of adoring fans, but your every social move was being watched and any rumors concerning you would spread around the school faster than wildfire…

And what was up with Lily? She took his comments really seriously—like she'd been jaded in love in the past and she never wanted to have a relationship ever again. Somehow James didn't think that she was that type of girl, but he didn't really know her. All he was sure of was that there was something behind her perfect mask.

That was why the first thought that registered in his mind when he could breathe freely again was, _What__ the hell just happened?_

*****  

Smooth and cream-colored. The long roll of parchment lay on the desk, waiting to be filled with intelligent thoughts on the wonders of the rebellion of goblins against wizards in the late 17th century...

Chloe tapped the tip of her unloaded quill on the wood of her study desk, her chin resting on her other hand. Who needed this crap, anyway? Who cared about a freaking goblin-and-wizard war that happened three hundred years ago? 

"Argh!" She threw her quill down and slammed her reference book shut, deciding that she could just do it tomorrow. Or maybe she could copy Nami's essay. Yeah, that would be in order. 

The blonde girl sighed and stood up, ready to take a long, refreshing bath before turning in, when Lily burst into the room, looking visibly upset. "Lily!" she exclaimed, startled. "What's wrong?"

Lily gave her a strained smile and said, in a slightly cold, slightly disconcerted way, "Nothing." 

Chloe gathered her things with a wave of her wand. "Well, that 'nothing' sounded like something," she scoffed, still a bit in a mood after her last unproductive hour of glaring at a clean new sheet of parchment. Her expression softened when Lily lied down on her own bed, obviously thinking over something bad. "Sorry. Er…does this, perchance, have anything to do with James Potter?"

Lily said nothing, but scowled openly. She started doing that a lot these days. Chloe didn't like it. Lily was usually so pleasant. 

Wincing, Chloe decided it best to just leave Lily alone. She did want to help her friend, but there was also that matter of her crush on James. "Um…I'm going to take a bath. Talk to me if you need to, okay? I think Nami's going to be back soon." Lily still didn't say anything, so she started to move toward the bathroom. 

"What do you see in him?" Lily suddenly spoke up, making Chloe stop in her tracks. 

"W-what?" Chloe said, turning around.

"Potter. What do you like about him? What makes him so special?" Lily asked tonelessly.

"Well," Chloe began uncertainly, "he's good-looking, for one. He's smart, a good Quidditch player, and he's funny. And he's…nice," she finished lamely, knowing that Lily wasn't going to be satisfied with that. 

Lily propped herself to a sitting position. "What about all the pranks he plays on people? And the way he thinks he's God's gift to man, the way he struts around the school with his friends? His obnoxious disregard of the rules? His arrogance, and his delusions about having the right to barge into other people's business?" She said this last part very bitterly.

"There _is that," Chloe said in a small voice, "Do—do you want me to stop liking him? I can try, you know, if it'll make you more comfortable." _

"No," Lily answered softly, suddenly shaking her head. "No, no. I… I'm sorry, Chloe. I know I don't have a right to ask you to… If you really think there's something special about him—" She stopped. "I-I'll deal with it. But…I really do hate him, Chloe. Hate's a strong word, but…" she trailed off, not bothering to explain. She looked pleadingly at Chloe. "I hope you understand." 

"Of course I do," Chloe said, going over to Lily and hugging her. "And you have nothing to be sorry about. _I'm the one who should be sorry—he's done all he can to make you angry and I still like him…" She felt a bit guilty. _

Lily gave her a weak smile. "You can like whoever you want," she said. "It doesn't matter what I think. Nothing is your fault." 

"If you say so," Chloe said, returning her smile. She tilted her head toward the bathroom and indicated the towel hanging over her shoulder. "Gotta go." 

Lily nodded, her expression conveying sadness and guilt. "So go." 

Stepping inside the bathroom, Chloe shut the door firmly. She leaned against it, closed her eyes, and sighed. She resolved to get rid of her little infatuation once and for all, for Lily's sake. 

It was the least she could do.

*****  

Lily started to make herself comfortable in her bed. After yet another scene caused by James Potter, she was left with unvented fury, a sense of distress, and a reminder of all her ugly memories. Yes, memories. Did he just _have to mention if she had a past relationship or not? Because she indeed had, and its end was one of the worst memories of her life. And one horrible reminiscence led to another, and she found herself thinking about all of them…_

She fell into a fitful sleep, and once again she found herself reliving those memories in her dreams…

*****  

Weary feet trudged along the path of the Forbidden Forest, anxious to reach the end and the safety of the Hogwarts castle. Nami had a job looking for the elusive plant she and Sirius were supposed to gather two bunches of, and because Sirius had run off, she was left to look for them by herself. 

She growled in frustration, kicking viciously at the rocks in her way. Curse that Black! He had left a Sticking Charm on those worms, and it was torture, prying them off of her…after that terrifying and exhausting ordeal, she still faced the prospect of accomplishing the detention. She had wandered around, thinking that the prat would show up sooner or later. Well, guess what? He didn't, and she swore that once she got out of this nightmare forest she would _really disembowel him—or do something equally painful. _

Clutching two bundles of glowing flowers in her hands, she saw the end of the path and the castle in the distance. She quickened her pace, anxious to kill Black and take a shower, when a massive black dog darted from between the trees and stepped right in the path! 

She recognized it as looking somewhat like a Grim, but she didn't really believe in such nonsense. As her fear was worms, her love was of dogs. This one looked harmless enough… She knelt down on one knee and made that clicking noise to attract a dog's attention. The dog turned to look at her with its brown eyes. She was surprised that it held the stems of a bunch of the same kind of flowers that she had in her hand.

*****   

Padfoot scampered through the trees, enjoying the feel of the slightly damp and leaf-strewn ground against his paws. He had followed a trail to the plant he was looking for long ago, as his keen canine sense of smell had picked up its scent easily. Now he was heading for the end of the forest, so that he could transform back, when somebody behind him made a clicking noise, and he turned around.

He blinked. It was Nami, but she looked…different. She was smiling slightly and beckoning him to come closer. His dog instinct urged him to come forward, but at the last second a thought flitted through his head, and he decided to scare her. He growled and gave her the most menacing look he could manage. 

The girl before him didn't even flinch. What was wrong with her?! She was supposed to panic, and run in the opposite direction as fast as she could. 

Of course, he wasn't going to bite her, that would be too disgusting—but it would have been interesting if she at least _screamed. _But no, she continued making that clicking noise, and said, "C'mere, boy. Come on." 

The human part of him wanted to say _No way in hell, _but as he was in dog form, his dog senses gave out, and he trotted toward her, growling at his weakness. Nami's smile widened, and—damn, he never saw her smiling at him! She always glared at him, and this was quite a change.

He admitted (though he told himself that he did it grudgingly) that she looked very pretty when she smiled. 

She transferred all the flowers she was holding into one hand and extended the other, patting him on the head. "Kawaii," she said, still smiling, her eyes lighting up.  (kawaii – cute)

Padfoot heard her utter a word he didn't know the meaning of, but he felt that it was something good. He kind of liked being patted when he was in dog form, but of course he never told his friends that. When Nami stopped patting him, he put the flowers he had gathered into her free hand. 

She laughed. It was a nice laugh. "Arigato," she said sincerely. She never used a tone like that with him. It was usually with a note of anger, annoyance, exasperation, fury, disgust, revolt…he could go on and on. 

He was a little confused, not knowing what that word meant, and she must have sensed that. "Oh, a British dog, are you? Well, I meant, thanks." She laughed again, and stood up.

Padfoot barked.

*****  

Nami stood up and looked at the flowers in her hand. _Three _bunches…they wouldn't have anything to complain about, now. She looked back at the dog before her, who was wagging his tail. 

"What, do you live here? Or is your master up at the school?" she asked. 

The dog barked after her last statement. She took that to mean that he was going to the castle, but if he was somebody's dog, then what was he doing inside the Forbidden Forest? She just shrugged and said, "Come on, then, let's go." 

She walked toward the end of the path and the dog bounded forward, walking beside her. She found it strange that such a massive creature could seem so tame and un-aggressive to a stranger, but then, there were friendly dogs. This one must be one of them. 

They neared the hut of the new gamekeeper, Hagrid, who relieved Apollyon Pringle of the position just last year. The lights inside his house were open and as they reached it, the door opened and Hagrid came out. 

"Ah, yeh've got them flowers, then, Nami?" the half-giant said kindly. His expression turned confused, however. "Where's Sirius? And where'd the dog come from, eh?" 

"Oh," Nami said, once again remembering the way Black ditched the detention. She gestured at the dog. "Well, this is…actually, I don't know his name, but he must be somebody's dog up at the school," she explained, kneeling down again patting it. 

Hagrid shrugged and smiled. "S'funny, ain't it? Yeh've got kids asking their parents to buy pets fer 'em, but they don't appreciate the poor things once they've got 'em and leave 'em wandering around on their own…" he trailed off sadly, shaking his head. "Best yeh go up ter the school, now, and get some sleep. Here, I'll take the flowers and give 'em ter Professor Sprout. Yer wand's up with Professor McGonagall; she's in her office, I reckon." He took the flowers from Nami and stared pointedly at her, in a way of still inquiring where Sirius had gone. 

Nami sighed. "Black pulled a trick on me and left. The idiot's probably up at the school now, gloating for escaping detention. He won't get away with this, I swear…"

"Nah, I know that kid, he may be a lot o' trouble, but he never just up and leaves detention. He'll probably come round later, don' worry." 

"Believe me, I won't," Nami said. "I wouldn't worry about that prat even if he was screaming his lungs out somewhere in the depths of the forest, being chased by a werewolf," she finished disgustedly.

"He's not that bad, yeh know," Hagrid said gently.

Nami frowned, her mind still on Sirius's dirty trick. "Yes, he is," she objected firmly. "I _hate him." _

She bid Hagrid a good night and left. Both of them didn't notice the dog's hurt expression as it followed Nami to the school.

*****

~A/N~

*Quoted by Edward J. Phelps

**Quoted by William Shakespeare

***I don't know if this word is correct, but just assume that it means "fear of worms." If you do know the real word for it, please inform me. I just took the first part of the word from "Helminthology – the study of worms."

If anyone's wondering about Lily's memories and what it has to do with her being a perfectionist, it's all up next chapter…so be nice and review if you want to see it a week from now… ^o^


	5. Memories and Secrets

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

_"Hatreds are the cinders of affection."_

_~Sir Walter Raleigh_

***** - change of scene

 _~~~ - _change of scene in a dream

**A/N** ~ I'm not planning on Sirius and Nami to become a couple… Yeah, I know that the whole Lily's-best-friend-will-be-paired-with-Sirius thing is so overused… I did it myself once, and I'm not too proud of _that _story. I'm just going to make them act more decent to one another. ^_^ No offense to the authors who go along that kind of Sirius/OC pairing, I've read some of those and they're actually quite good. Mine just don't set off like theirs do L 

**Chapter 5: Memories and Secrets**

Lily's unconscious mind was set in a dreamy haze. Different scenes flitted through it in a swirl of colors and blurs…

_~~~_

_An eleven year old girl stood on the front doorstep of a house, clutching something in her right hand, afraid to let it go, because if she did, its contents might not really exist at all, and it would be as if she had just imagined all of it. She excitedly waited for her parents' arrival from work, to share the unbelievable—but wondrous—news that the letter in her hand contained. Her older sister was not home, but staying over at a friend's house for a sleepover. She badly wanted to tell somebody, anybody, about her wonderful news, but somehow she knew that it was supposed to be a secret that she should divulge only to the closest people to her…her family. _

_"Lily! What are you doing out here? Did you forget to bring your set of keys and got locked out of the house?" her mother's voice asked in alarm. _

_Lily looked up, startled. She had been so lost in thought that she didn't even notice that the family car had just pulled into the driveway.  She stood up and sprinted towards her parents, a huge grin on her face. "Mum, Dad! You've got to read this!" she exclaimed giddily, jumping up and down, barely containing her excitement. _

_Her father, who was locking up the car, exchanged a quizzical but amused look with Mrs. Evans. "Why don't we go inside the house first?" _

_The young girl practically pushed her parents into the house. She closed the front door with a little too much enthusiasm, and her mother gave her a disapproving look. This didn't dampen her spirits, though, and she hurriedly thrust the heavy piece of parchment at them, and instructed, "Read it! Quick!"_

_She watched, with a mixture of anticipation and amusement, as her parents' eyes widened in shock and amazement. "Well?" she asked impatiently, when her parents finished reading the letter. _

_"This is…" Mrs. Evans said breathlessly, unable to express coherently what she wanted to say._

_"Can I go, mum, dad? Can I, please?" Lily pleaded, looking from one parent to another. _

_Mr. Evans, who had taken the amazing news with much more composure than his wife, readily replied, "Of course you can! It's simply astounding…you don't get a letter telling you that you're a witch everyday!" He hugged his daughter, who couldn't possibly think of any other moment in her life when she'd been this happy. _

_"We're very proud of you, dear, just always remember that!" Mrs. Evans spoke, wiping tears of joy from her eyes and also embracing her second child._

_"I'll do my best there, I promise! I'm going to be at the top of my class, you'll see!" Lily made strong vows that she knew, in her heart, she had to keep…_

_~~~_

_"Get away from me!" Petunia shrieked, shoving Lily's arms away from her._

_The confused redhead dropped her arms, which were outstretched to hug her sister, to her sides. "What's wrong, Petunia?" she whispered in a hurt tone, not believing that her sister could look at her with so much contempt and revolt. They had never been that close, and had their share of sibling arguments, but Lily still loved her sister dearly, although Petunia had never shown her that she felt the same way. _

_"What's _wrong? _You're a _witch,_ a—a freak_!!! I can't believe I'm related to someone like you!" Petunia screamed.__

_"But—" Lily stepped towards her sister, trying to make her understand. _

_"Ugh! Just leave me alone!!!" Petunia ran out of the room, as if Lily had a disease that she was afraid she would catch if she stood too near. _

_Lily stood in the living room, frozen in that position, unable to comprehend why Petunia could act so harshly. So what if she was a witch? That didn't make her a freak—if there was a school for witches and wizards then there were bound to be many more of her kind, right? So why was Petunia being so unreasonable with this?_

_The euphoria of knowing that she was a magical being was starting to fade. If it meant being detested by her sister just by her existence, then was it really worth it?_

Yes, _Lily decided. She would show Petunia that being a witch didn't automatically translate that she was to be abhorred. She wasn't a cackling old lady with a wart on the end of her nose—she was a normal, well, not-so-normal girl who just wanted to learn magic. _

_Petunia cared a lot about her own reputation, about being popular in school. She really was well-known, as she always knew the latest gossip, and people made it a habit to talk to her about rumors that circulated around school. Well, Lily could be like that. She could be popular, and have a lot of friends, and be respected by everybody. There was no way that Petunia could say that she was a freak if there were tons of people who knew her and befriended her. _

_Without the gossip.___

*****  

"Blue cheese," Nami said. The portrait of the Fat Lady, upon hearing the password, swung forward. 

Nami went through the portrait hole, clutching two wands in her hand. She had gone to McGonagall's office to claim them, although the Head of House was a bit uncertain about handing Sirius's wand over to her too. She quickly assured McGonagall that she wouldn't attempt breaking Sirius's wand in half to make him helpless—after all, she didn't play _that_ dirty. "C'mon, boy," she urged the massive black dog, who was still standing outside and looked a bit apprehensive about entering. 

Finally, after a few moments (with a bit of complaining on the Fat Lady's part), the dog jumped into the Gryffindor common room. A third year girl screamed, "It's a Grim!" 

People turned around to look, including Sirius Black's friends—Remus, Peter and James. "Hey look, it's Pa—" Peter started to say aloud, before Remus quickly cast a Silencing Charm on him and shot him a look. 

"You know this dog?" Nami asked Peter. She didn't like him a whole lot—he always did what Sirius told him to do. _Black is such a manipulative prick—not that Pettigrew's that smart either, if he can't even stand up to that idiot, _she thought silently. 

"Er—" Peter squeaked, but was interrupted by Remus.

"Yes, we do. He's—well, he's, er, James's dog," Remus answered, none too smoothly. James shot him a look that said "What? Why me?" Thankfully, Nami didn't notice the little exchange. 

Nami raised an eyebrow at James. "If he's your dog, then why was he in the Forbidden Forest?" 

A look of dawning comprehension settled in the marauders' features. "Wasn't P—Sirius with you?" James asked.

Nami's face darkened, and James knew he had asked the wrong question. "That reminds me, if Black wants his wand back, tell him to go find me," she said, not answering the question. "I've got a bone to pick with him."

Knowing that that didn't mean anything good, Peter quickly said, "Oh, you don't have to bother, we can just give it back to him when he…turns up." He gave the dog an inconspicuous glance. 

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm afraid I have to decline," Nami said curtly. "Don't worry, though, I'll hand him his wand before I do anything, I'll just give it to him _outside the castle so that I can get a nice head start." She gave Peter a fake sweet smile and tossed Sirius's wand tauntingly in the air, then caught it again. _

The dog whined audibly. Nami knelt down to pat him—causing a different set of reactions appear on the marauders' faces. Peter looked appalled, with his mouth hanging open; James's eyes widened in disbelief, and Remus's expression was a mixture of shock and amusement. 

"What's his name, James?" Nami asked, looking up at the group of pranksters, who had quickly fixed their faces back to normal, as if seeing your best friend _enjoying a scratch behind the ears by his most hated enemy was something they saw everyday. Sure, he was in his Animagus form, and Nami didn't know that, but it was still unnerving. _

"Er—" James racked his brain for a name, then he smirked at the dog and said, "Snuffles." The dog growled.

"If that's his name, then why's he growling at you?" Nami asked quizzically, glancing from "Snuffles" to James. Remus subtly gave the dog a kick, and Padfoot's whines immediately turned into an enthusiastic bark (after he gave a menacing look to Remus, who looked away innocently). He went up to James and wagged his tail.

"See?" James said triumphantly, trying to keep his laughter inside. 

Nami shot Snuffles a curious look. "That's weird," she said with a frown. She shook her head. "Whatever. Anyway, tell Black that he better make up a good enough excuse for ditching detention—if he still wants to live tomorrow, that is." She started to walk away, but then stopped and turned around. "Bye, Snuffles!" She smiled at the dog, who barked in return. Then she disappeared up the girls' staircase.

None of the other Gryffindors could figure out why Remus, James and Peter suddenly burst out laughing, and why "Snuffles" growled and gave them rabid looks. 

***** 

When Nami entered her dormitory room, she didn't notice that Lily was tossing and turning in her sleep…

_~~~_

_The decorations of the Christmas tree in one of the corners of the room twinkled merrily. __Garlands__ of holly were strewn all around and the snow was softly falling outside. The delicious aromas of a Christmas dinner were wafting into the room through the doorway adjoining it to the dining room. It was supposed to be the picture of a perfect Christmas._

_But it wasn't._

_"What do you mean, she's sick?" Fourteen-year-old Lily asked weakly. Mr. Evans's face was grave and Petunia's usual scowl was missing. _

_"Your mother is in the hospital. She was rushed into the intensive care unit this morning when we took her there. For the past few weeks her health has been declining rapidly, but the doctors were unable to diagnose exactly what ailed her," Lily's father explained. His face was unusually pale and his hands were shaking. Lily didn't like the way he was acting. He was usually so strong and sure of himself, but right now he looked lost and anxious. _

_Petunia, too, had taken the news very hard. She didn't shoot Lily her usual glare, as she always did whenever Lily came home for the holidays, but right now her expression was filled with fear and apprehension. _

_"The ICU?__ But that's for patients who are…"  Lily trailed off, unable to complete the sentence aloud. But that's only for people who are under the threat of dying. Who are hanging onto life by a thread…_

_"She's not going to die!" Petunia snapped at Lily, starting to look a little like her normal self. "She-she can't…" She suddenly burst into tears, startling Lily and Mr. Evans._

_"We're not sure yet, Petunia, but I can guarantee you that your mother is going to fight her sickness," Mr. Evans said softly, stroking his daughter's hair. _

_Lily, however, had no intention to break down and cry. "How come I didn't know about what happened to her until now? Why didn't you tell me?!" she demanded. Didn't they know how horrible it was, to turn up for the Christmas holidays, expecting your family, _all _of them, to welcome you, and instead they shock you with the news that your mother might die because of something they didn't bother to tell you? _

_Mr. Evans was the one who answered. "She didn't want to worry you. It might have been something trivial, because she had yet to be diagnosed, and she didn't want to bother you what with all the work you have to do in school—"_

_"Well, maybe I _wanted _to be worried, did you ever think of that?" Lily said angrily. She couldn't control herself—she couldn't believe that she was half-shouting at her own father—although she knew that her father most especially didn't deserve her accusations. But didn't she deserve the truth? Especially if it was something that could change her life forever?_

_"We wanted to, Lily, but your mother insisted," Mr. Evans said calmly. _

_"I'm still a part of this family! I deserve to know whatever's going on under this roof!" Lily took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Hadn't she worked hard in school, to bring home the top marks that she knew her parents would be proud of? Hadn't she sent her family weekly letters from Hogwarts, so that they would always be in touch and up-to-date with what she was doing in school? Hadn't she achieved all she had promised, to be at the top of her classes, to be popular, to have true friends who would stick by her, to have no enemies, to control her temper no matter how ugly the situation,  to be _near-perfect_? _

_She had. And that was why she deserved to know. One letter, one letter containing the condition of her mother's health…was that too much to ask? _

_"Don't you shout at Dad! We've all gone through a lot, and all you can think about is yourself! Mum wanted what was best for you, and you're practically telling us that it's her fault that you didn't know anything until now!" Petunia yelled at her, wiping at her eyes before giving Lily the death glare that she knew so well. _

_Lily glared right back, something that she had never done before, and fled the room. She sought sanctuary in her own bedroom, slamming the door in frustration. Leaning on it, she broke down on the floor and cried._

_~~~  _

_Relief.__ That was all she felt as she hugged her mother, who had grown extremely thin in a short span of time. _

_"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner," Mrs. Evans whispered as she lied back down on her bed. "I didn't know that it would be this serious."_

_Lily felt guilty. Her mother was already deathly sick, and all she was complaining about was not being informed of her health status. What mattered that Mrs. Evans was here now, alive, and within her reach. "No, _I'm_ sorry. I didn't mean to blame you for not sending me a letter at school or anything," Lily said quickly. "I just—I don't want to lose you, mum. I want to know about everything that's going on at home, even if I'm miles away at Hogwarts."_

_"I know, Lily," Mrs. Evans said quietly, smiling at her daughter. She looked so weak, and Lily knew that she was nowhere near cured. _

_"Mum?" _

_"Yes, dear?"___

_Lily took a deep breath and tried to blink back her tears. "Are you going to…" She couldn't say it. She couldn't say that word, because she wouldn't accept it._

_"To die?"__ Mrs. Evans finished softly, holding Lily's hand in hers. "Not yet…" There was a long pause, in which the only sound that could be heard was Lily's sniffling. "Listen, Lily, you know as well as I do that death is inevitable…unavoidable. Somebody once said, 'There's nothing certain in man's life but this: that he must lose it.'* __I myself am not certain how long I have left, but I will make the most of what little time God has granted me. I've lived a good life, and I'm thankful for everything I've ever experienced, good or bad. Because that is what makes us who we are, Lily. Everything we do, everything we act upon, expresses us and our outlook on life."_

_"I don't understand," Lily said. _

_Mrs. Evans smiled patiently. "You choose who you want to be, my child. Some people look at life in a positive way, and believe that there is always something to be grateful for, no matter how bad a situation is. Others view their life as something filled with problems, and because they dwell on their troubles, they do not experience the joy of truly living, of forgetting what bothers them for just a moment. Every wrong decision fills them with regret, and at the end, they will find that they are sorry that they didn't live a life well-spent. I don't have any regrets with the way I've lived my life, Lily. And I hope that you will not, in yours."_

_A tear spilled down Lily's cheek. "Mum, you're talking like…like you're already dying." _

_"I _am _dying," her mother said, calmly, firmly. There were no tears in her eyes, which held a deep sadness all the same. "I am dying…slowly, but surely… But I will not dwell on worries about something that is unstoppable. Instead I will look at all that I have left, all that has made me content when I didn't know yet that my time will come sooner than I expected. And you are one of those things, Lily…"_

_"Mum…" Lily could no longer stop the dam of tears that were making their way down her face. "You're not going to leave us, right? It's not your time yet, I know it isn't…"_

_Mrs. Evans closed her eyes. Her breathing seemed to be slightly labored. Lily knew that her mother was in pain, and that she didn't want to show that weakness in front of her daughter. She coughed once, sat up, and said, "My only wish of you is to see you become a full-fledged witch—that'd be three years from now, isn't it? It won't be long now... Speaking of which, how's school?" _

_"It's fine," Lily answered, noticing that her mother was changing the subject. _

_"Still at the top of your class?"___

_"…You could say that. I'm neck and neck with James Potter." _

_"I'm glad that you're so focused with your studies. Just…don't work too hard, okay?" _

_"Yes mum."_

_"Don't ever forget to loosen up once in a while. You have to balance work with a little play."_

_"I will, mum."_

_Mrs. Evans laid her head against the pillow, her eyes gradually closing again. The side effects of her medicine were starting to take effect, and she spoke her next words drowsily. "I'm very proud of you, Lily. And I love you very much. No matter what happens, don't ever forget that." There was silence for a few moments, and then Lily heard the sound of her sleeping mother's even breathing. _

_"I won't forget, mum," Lily said quietly, and then she left the room. Her accomplishments in school, her living her life in the "perfect" way that she had shaped it, made her mother happy… And right now she would do anything for her mother's happiness. _

_Anything.___

_*****  _

Laughter. It might not seem like such a complex word, but it expresses far more than people think. There are times when someone shows the occasional mirthless laugh, which usually applies when one says something stupid or ridiculous, which the addressee doesn't think amusing in the least. It also happens to some insane people, who laugh for no apparent reason. Sometimes it occurs when one is at a formal dinner party, and when the host shares a stale joke, the others force out a fake laugh, just to sound polite. 

But most times, people laugh when they are happy, and when they find something particularly funny.

This last statement applied to three very amused sixteen-year-old boys, more specifically named James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, who were writhing on the floor of their dormitory room because of laughing so hard. 

Another boy, Sirius Black, was sitting on his bed, looking like he was going to spontaneously combust, what with the unnaturally brilliant red color of his face. From embarrassment or extreme anger, it was hard to make out. He did not join in his friends' sniggering and chortling.

Of course, one who is sane (most of the time, we all have our 'lose your head' moments occasionally XD) laughs because he has something to laugh about, has a reason for rolling around on the floor, clutching his aching stomach, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, and gasping for breath after guffawing for what seems like hours. 

And it was obvious from this picture as to who was the object of amusement, and who were about to be killed by the object of amusement for ridiculing and laughing at said object a bit too much. 

"WILL YOU THREE JUST SHUT UP?!?" Sirius finally yelled after suffering from almost thirty minutes of public (private?) ridicule, courtesy of his _loyal _friends. Hmph. 

"I'm—*gasp*—sorry, Padfoot, just give me a sec—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Remus managed to say as he continued to roll around on the dark red carpet in helpless laughter.

"Padfoot! He s-said…" James gasped out, breaking into another fit of sniggers. "Merlin, it's k-k-killing me…"

Sirius took the liberty to stand up, stomp over to his best friend, and give him a good kick. "Stop laughing, then! Wait, if you don't stop, I'll kill you lot _myself_…" This, naturally, just made James laugh harder. Peter's chuckles subsided, however, as soon as the phrase "I'll kill you" left Sirius's mouth.

"Well, that's an improvement," Sirius said, tightlipped and uncannily resembling Professor McGonagall. Peter quailed under his glare. 

"You've got to admit that was pretty funny, though," Remus pointed out, finally managing to stop himself from laughing again. He had to; he might've suffocated if he didn't. "Actually, it was shocking at first, but after a while—"

"Ah, what a sweet and touching scene we had back there, with Nami patting her beloved doggie, for the first time gracing him with a smile…" James said tearfully, feigning touched emotion before chortling again. It was a miracle that he managed to get out that line without cracking once at all. 

Sirius took out his wand threateningly and James stopped laughing. "One more word, Prongs—"

"Hey, hey, hey! Is that any way to treat your master, _Snuffles_?" James said wickedly, recovering from his initial scare and taking out his own wand. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry, was I supposed to act like _this_?" Sirius transformed into his dog form and tackled James to the floor. The two continued to play-wrestle, and Peter and Remus watched contentedly from the sidelines. James was soon tired out and Padfoot jumped over him repeatedly with a triumphant air, wagging his tail.

Remus cleared his throat and lifted the enormous dog's right front paw (Padfoot stood up on his two hind legs), "The winner! Snuf—" Padfoot made a swipe at Remus's hand with his sharp teeth— "Padfoot!" Peter clapped and James groaned, pretending to mope about losing. 

When all this disorganized fun had lost its effects, and the marauders were sitting or lying on their beds quietly, Remus spoke up. "You know, you two really looked cute back there; we should have taken a picture and sent it to the folks back home—" he was unable to say any more than that, as Padfoot chased him around the room in a way that only a mad dog on the loose could. 

***** 

_"Hey, guys! I'm back!" Lily shouted across the playground, where her other eleven-year-old Muggle friends were hanging out. She had just gotten back from the best school year ever—she really wanted to tell them all about it, but she had to keep it secret. What a bummer…_

_"Oh. Hello, Lily," a curly-haired brunette said somewhat coldly. Lily stopped waving her hand at them. _What's up with Janet? _she__ wondered silently, not overlooking the fact that her usually cheerful friend did not smile to her in greeting. _

_"Yeah, good to see you back," Joanne, a tall girl with dirty blonde hair said in the same lackluster tone. _

_The others who hadn't bothered to greet her averted their eyes when Lily's own emerald ones rested upon them. She came nearer, puzzled. They fell silent when she was just within two feet of the jungle gym, where the lot of them were sitting. What was _wrong_ with them? All of them? _

_Lily put her hands on her hips. "Well? Aren't any of you going to say anything? Alyssa? Jeff? Kenneth?" She looked at each of the people she was referring to, and, much to her irritation, they tried to avoid her gaze. _

_"Er—hi, Lily," Jeff almost-whispered timidly.__ Lily gaped at him. Jeff, timid? He was the loud, outgoing and hyperactive guy of the group! Did they all eat something funny for breakfast? Or was she just…missing something?_

_There was a long, awkward pause after that. When she was sure (and furious) that none of them was going to say _anything, _she offered, "My mum said we could all hang out at my place later. We can eat lunch there and catch up on stuff." _

_"I…sorry, but I'm busy later," Alyssa mumbled, her hazel eyes trained on the grass at her feet. _

_"I'm supposed to go with my dad to one of the companies he owns…" Kenneth said a tad too quickly to be relevant, looking (not quite) apologetic.  _

_Lily turned to look at her other friends for responses. "What about you guys?" she demanded, wishing she could just scream "Why don't you just spit out whatever bad thing you want to say?!" _

_"Gotta clean my room, Grandma's been nagging me to do it all week," Janet responded in the same cold tone she had used. _

_Jeff swallowed hard as Lily glared at him to listen to _his _excuse. "I—er—"_

_"Oh, for heaven's sake!"__ Joanne burst out, looking exasperated. "Listen, Lily, we don't want _to see you anymore. Do we have to spell it out for you?" she said callously as she rolled her eyes at the redhead. __

_"W-what do you—" Lily started to stammer, her anger replaced with a cold feeling of dread. _

_"Just go, Lily. You know what we're talking about, Petunia told us all about it," Janet interrupted, looking like she was gaining confidence after Joanne's outburst. _

_Lily's eyes narrowed. Petunia wasn't stupid enough to blab to everyone about Lily's being a witch… "What exactly did she tell you?"_

_Janet jumped down from her perch on the topmost rail of the jungle gym. "What does it matter what she said? You already know what it is," she countered disdainfully. _

_"No, I don't," Lily snapped, clenching her fists. _

_"Come now, Lily, can't you even admit to us that you're a little weird in the head?" Joanne said in a bored voice. _

_"Weird in the head?__ What are you saying?" shouted Lily, beyond angry. What lies did Petunia feed her friends? _

_Joanne snorted. "Don't you go to that school for incurable illicit…what was it again?" The blonde glanced at Alyssa, who shrugged and just concentrated on not catching Lily's eye. _

_"I am _not_ some misfit who's bordering on insane," the redheaded witch said hotly. First Petunia and now her friends. Was the whole Muggle world against her? "And I can't believe you'd take Petunia's word over mine." _

_Janet crossed her arms over her chest. "Maybe we would have, if you _had _a word to oppose Petunia's," she said crossly. _

_Lily was silent. How could she tell them that she couldn't send them letters without revealing her secret? And what would she write about, anyway? That she took flying lessons on a broom and learned how to turn matches into needles? She looked at her other three "friends," who hadn't spewed out their opinions of her just yet. "Do you guys believe them too?" _

_"If you don't attend that school your sister keeps telling us about, then where _have _you been enrolled to?" Kenneth asked bluntly. _

_Again, Lily found herself unable to say anything. _

_Joanne rolled her eyes again. "Geez, Lily, if you're even bothering to argue with us, at least come up with a good enough lie. But then again, we wouldn't believe you anyway, would we?" _

_Lily couldn't believe that these were her _friends _talking to her. "Well, if I had a few screws loose, you'd rather tell me all about this when I'm safely behind bars or something, wouldn't you! And an insane person wouldn't be allowed to wander around by herself, so it's pretty thick of you to think that I'm losing it!" _

_"We know how your parents spoil you, we hear Petunia complaining about it every other day in school," Janet replied. "I suppose they pity you, if your teachers need to keep you locked up somewhere to put some sense in your head, although I don't see the point in educating mad lun—" _

_She was unable to finish her comment, as Lily strode forward and slapped her hard. Lily was well aware of what she was doing, and knew that slapping her friends was not typical eleven-year-old girl behavior, but she had had enough. "How _dare _you," the redhead seethed, her fists clenched so hard she could feel her fingernails digging into her palm. "I can't believe I considered you my friends! I've been gone for ten months, and you've completely lost your trust in me! I should—" She fought for control, knowing that she was bound to perform illegal magic if she didn't cool down.  _

_"Joanne, she's getting violent! Call somebody!" Janet whimpered, nursing her stinging cheek and suddenly looking frightened. _

_"Just run!" Joanne yelled, and simultaneously they started to do so as she said. Lily turned to run in the opposite direction, fearing that her rage would get the better of her and she would find Ministry officials swooping down on her for breaking the rules on underage magic. _

_She had gotten as far as the edge of the playground when somebody called her name behind her. _

_"Lily, wait!" _

_Turning around, she saw Jeff, panting hard from running. "What are you doing? Don't you want to run home and get away from a crackpot like me?" Lily snapped spitefully, glaring at him. _

_Jeff winced and said, "N-no, I just wanted to tell you that I believe you," he said quietly. _

_Lily felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. Here was the only one who believed her, and she had just shouted at him. "Oh. Sorry," she muttered, suddenly very interested in her shoes. _

_"S'okay. I'd fly off the handle too if my friends accused me of going mad," he answered, smiling at Lily. "So…still friends?" _

_Lily hugged him. "Yeah. Still friends." _

_~~~  _

_She was fifteen. And she knew now that while she was accepted, even admired, in the wizarding world, her life in the Muggle world was slowly crumbling to bits. She sat huddled in a corner of her room, crying silently. It all started that morning…_

_*dream flashback*_

_"Sorry, Lily, but we have to end this," Jeff, her boyfriend, said coldly. _

_"What?" Lily laughed nervously, hoping that this was all a joke. They were in the same playground where Jeff had first told her that he would still stand by her, no matter what, four years ago. "What happened? Did we get into a fight that I didn't even know about?" _

_"I'm serious." Those two words made Lily's blood run cold. _

_Lily ran a hand through her red hair, feeling the confusion of being pushed away, which she had once felt with her former Muggle friends, once again. "I don't understand. Did I miss something?" she demanded, her temper threatening to spill over. Her eyes narrowed. "Or maybe there's someone else? Someone you should have told me about?" _

_Jeff rolled his eyes. "Nothing that dramatic. This is the way it has to be, that's all."_

_"You're telling me that you're breaking up just because 'that's the way it has to be'? That's bullshit, and you know it!" Lily found herself swearing, something she never did before. _

_"Fine, you want the truth?" Jeff snapped, his eyes flashing. "It was all a bet." _

_Lily's fury faltered, and it was replaced with hurt and confusion. "A…bet?" she said quietly._

_Jeff nodded calmly, as if telling your girlfriend that your whole relationship was a bet was something that he did everyday. "Four years ago, when we all found out from Petunia about your…condition, Kenneth made a bet with me. We were all certain that nobody was going to act chummy with you again once you came back, but he dared me to act like your friend for the rest of the summer. He thought I'd chicken out, since that would mean spending time with someone mad, and that would have been dangerous." _

_It hurt. Lily felt like salt had been poured on her old wounds. "What was at stake?" _

_"Something Kenneth had that I really wanted. Anyway, that's not important now, is it? It was just an eleven-year-old boy's material wants," Jeff said dismissively, leaning against the ladder of the monkey bars. _

_"And I suppose that explains why you kept pretending to be my friend, and then my boyfriend, for another three years?" Lily said in the most sarcastic and coldly furious voice that she could muster, even though all she felt like doing at that moment was to burst into tears. _

_"Well, Kenneth's a rich guy. And even though he's a friend, he doesn't give stuff away that easily, does he? Besides, I thought, two months, that's not such a long time. After that you'd be off to that weird school of yours, no contact until the next summer holidays. Piece of cake, and I'd get a lot of stuff for compensation. It was weird, though, the way Kenneth continued the bets even if he knew I wouldn't back down," Jeff smirked, clearly remembering all the things he had weaseled out of Kenneth for those bets._

_"Don't tell me you were willing to be seen in public with 'someone mad' while everyone you knew just ogled from the sidelines!" Lily half-shouted. _

_Jeff started to laugh. "Are you crazy? Wait, there was no need to say that…" He paused, as Lily glared at him. He didn't know, though, that she was concentrating hard on not letting her tears show. "Everybody knew. Joanne and Janet made sure of that four years ago."_

_A flurry of emotions whirled around inside Lily. Everybody knew…everybody knew that she was being deceived, that their relationship had been a lie. At that moment, she felt as if all the feelings inside her were tearing her apart. Shock. Pain. Confusion. Betrayal. Fury. And another one, which seemed to be the least present of them all: indifference. She had to stay indifferent, appear unaffected and unscathed. She wouldn't let Jeff and her other "friends" win. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing that they hurt her, took advantage of her and made her life more miserable than it already was. _

_"I don't see why they're so afraid of you, anyway. You're harmless, and you don't act like you're loony at all. At least, not the way I imagined you to be," Jeff went on._

_Lily felt her temper flaring again. If she could only whip out her wand…she'd show him how "harmless" she really was… But a voice at the back of her head was saying, _No. Don't let them win. Don't let him get to you… _"Did you ever think, for one moment, that maybe you were all wrong, and that Petunia was lying? If you thought that I acted sane enough to be a normal person, then why would you believe otherwise?" she mimicked his dead calm voice, thinking it a miracle that she could keep her rage in check._

_Jeff shrugged, infuriating Lily even more. "What's with the questions? Face it, Lily, you just don't belong here. I bought you four years to enjoy what you shouldn't have had since you went to that freak mental school. You should be grateful I've given you that much." He looked at Lily in that aloof way again, probably to make sure that she was processing this information. "Don't you have any friends in that school? You spend the better part of each year with them, anyway." _

_The redhead stirred from her position, giving him the same distant, penetrating stare. "Yes, I do. And I see now that I wasted two months each year, believing in and trusting someone who would willingly use another person for his own personal gain. I thought you were different, that you would stand by your own decisions, that you wouldn't be so gullible as to conform with the beliefs of shallow and ignorant people who don't know logic when it's staring them in the face." She waited for him to say something, to scorn her words, to launch into his own defensive tirade, or maybe even to ask for forgiveness. But he did none of those things, only staring at her with the same cool expression. "Thank you for making me see how you truly are. I only hope that you yourself will realize what a piece of scum you've been, and what a bastard you will be if you make another girl suffer the same fate I did. Goodbye, Jeff." _

_She turned around and walked away as steadily as she could. When she was sure that she was out of her ex-boyfriend's sight, she broke into a run, sought sanctuary behind the nearest wall out of other people's view, and let the hot tears slip freely down her face. _

_*end dream flashback* _

_Yes, she did have friends in her school. And there, she was respected, and admired, and loved. There she knew loyalty and true amity. There, she was known as a person who had next to no faults, and that was why she was readily accepted. There, she was an actress who lived out a life that she wished she could undo. She wished that she could just be herself. She wished that for once, she could just drop everything and not try to be perfect._

_Hogwarts was all she had left. That was why she had no choice but to continue performing her role, because everybody loved the actress, and not the real Lily. If people wouldn't accept her there, then she wouldn't have anything else._

_***** _

**~A/N~**

*Quoted by Earl of Lytton

I know I might get some raised eyebrows for Lily's reasons, but that was the best I could do. If some of you don't think so, I'm saying sorry in advance… I'm not too happy with the way things turned out, but this chapter is my longest one yet, passing the 6,000 words mark, and it'd be a pain to do it over… ****


	6. When Nothing is Left

**In the Way **

**By Dimantrien**

_"The greatest mistake you can make in this life is to be continually fearing you will make one."_

_~Elbert Green Hubbard _

**A/N ~ **Sorry for being late…school has been really hectic this month…

**Chapter 6: When Nothing is Left**

The sound of bed sheets rustling and audible whimpering woke Chloe up. She was still half-asleep, but she was fairly certain that the sounds were coming from Lily's bed. "Lily, are you okay?" she called out drowsily, pushing open one of the curtains around her bed with a heavy arm. 

She listened for a few moments, hearing nothing but silence. Unconsciously, she let the hangings drape down again and her eyes closed; she turned over and was soon fast asleep again. The next morning, she woke up, remembering nothing of the incident. Or maybe she thought it was a dream. Either way, she didn't mention it to Lily when they went down for breakfast. 

The redhead had another fight with James Potter that morning. It was starting to become a regular event that the students enjoyed watching immensely, even though they fought about the pettiest and most ridiculous things. Thankfully, it was still quite early, and there were only a few witnesses, including both parties' friends. 

"Hey, Evans," James greeted as he pulled up a chair across Lily. He hadn't taken caution to know if she was still in a bad mood with him (not that she ever wasn't) because of his query yesterday about her love life, but he clearly decided that it was time to move on and make her irritated in another way.  

"How many times will it take you to realize that I do not want you in my presence?" Lily snapped. She was, indeed, in a particularly foul mood, not because of the scene in the common room, but because of another fresh bout of being forced to walk down memory lane in her dreams. 

James just gave her his trademark smirk, which he reserved for her whenever she gave him a scathing reply. "I've already realized that ages ago, hon. If I didn't, then why would I keep dropping by?" 

"_Go away, _Potter. I have no time for your cynical jests today," Lily said icily, giving him a glare that was just as cold. 

"When have you ever?" James shot back, exasperating Lily even further by grabbing a piece of toast which she had buttered and gobbling it up. 

Nami glanced at James, then at Lily, who was looking murderous. "Maybe you should go, James," she suggested with a sigh. She glanced at Chloe, who was surprisingly ignoring James and was being true to her self-made vow.  

James sat up straighter. "Hey, I've got—"

"—a right to sit wherever you want on the Gryffindor table, blah, blah, blah. I'm just trying to _help _you, because if you haven't noticed, which is highly likely, Lily isn't in such jovial spirits this morning, and would be willing to hex you here and now if you don't skedaddle in the next five seconds." Nami interjected, rolling her eyes at James's predictable response. 

"Bring it on, then," James replied defiantly, giving Lily a calculating stare. 

"The teachers are here," Chloe hissed in warning, and sure enough, they saw the teachers filing into their seats at the High Table. 

"So? Why, is Evans here going to run to the teachers for help?" 

Lily whipped out her wand, beyond the point of caring whether or not the professors saw her, and across her she saw James do the same. 

Nami kept an eye trained on the teachers. "Are you two crazy?! McGonagall is right there!" 

Both James and Lily opened their mouths to answer. "So wha—"

"So if you start a duel right in her face, she'll make you do a detention together, like she did with me and Black," Nami retorted, and they immediately shoved their wands into their pockets.

"A detention with Potter, Merlin that'd be a nightmare," Lily said aloud in disgust. 

"I'll be damned if I get stuck in detention with Evans, she'll probably moan and groan about getting punished for the first time in her whole perfect existence," James commented in the same tone. 

"If I did then it would've been your fault!" Lily retaliated, her voice rising. 

"Why would it be my fault? You're the one who's raring to go into a jinxing frenzy!" James stood up, glaring at her. 

Lily mirrored his move, rising from her seat so fast she knocked her chair over. "Well, I wouldn't have gotten the urge to hex you if you just stayed on your side of the table!" 

"It isn't against the rules to sit here! And you were the one who was in such a violent mood the moment I greeted you!" 

"The only time you'd come greet me is when you're trying to pick a fight, which is what you were obviously doing just now!" 

Chloe sighed. "Guys, will you just stop yelling and break it up? Nami, help me out here," she turned to her friend but was met only with an empty seat. The petty argument between Lily and James had reminded her about her own score to settle with Sirius, and she had run off to give him a piece of her mind. Chloe gave up trying to pacify her redheaded friend, starting to become a little annoyed with James herself. Maybe getting over him would be easier than she had thought. 

James and Lily were yelling at the top of their lungs now, and everyone, as usual, turned to watch. Remus and Peter found the fight an amusing follow-up to Padfoot's antics yesterday. Chloe dropped her head onto the table in defeat as a peeved Professor McGonagall strolled over to them to put things back in order. 

In the midst of the confusion, no one noticed Sirius Black being dragged out of the Hall by an Oriental girl, who looked, if possible, more furious than the hot-tempered Lily Evans herself. 

*****  

"Explain yourself."

These two words were said with such coldness that Sirius could literally feel himself shivering. He knew exactly why Nami was mad at him—then again, was there ever any moment when she _didn't _feel like clawing his eyes out? Never, except maybe last night, which was why they were here, in the Quidditch pitch, in the first place…

"I—er," Sirius said rather unintelligently. How was he supposed to explain that he had done his detention without mentioning that he could turn into an enormous, shaggy black dog? It was _her _fault; _she _was the one who ran into him and made him go all sappy when he was in dog form…just because he couldn't control himself from getting a pat on the head, even by _her_, the most insensitive and sadistic female alive—

Nami slowly took her wand out of her pocket, obviously savoring the fact that Sirius knew that she could hex him any second, and he would be rendered completely helpless, as she still had his wand with her. "I can't hear you saying anything in your defense," she taunted, twirling her wand with her two hands, smirking at him. 

Sirius stood up straighter, suddenly feeling a wave of defiance coming over him. This was so unfair—Nami was calling the shots, and he didn't even do anything wrong in the first place. Okay, so technically it was his fault for throwing a can full of worms at her in the middle of detention, but still… He sighed inwardly, trying to figure out a way to get out of this alive. "I _did_ do my share in the detention," he found himself saying.

The girl in front of him gave him a skeptic and exasperated glare. "Oh, you did? Because I went to Hagrid's hut this morning, and he said you didn't show up all night! He looked a little confused that you would just abandon detention like that, and he even backed you up yesterday. Not that I believed him, since it's _you_ we're talking about." 

"I'm not lying. You saw…Snuffles…in the forest, didn't you?" Sirius asked stonily. Damn Prongs for making up that name…

"Yeah, so?" Nami said, her voice faltering a little, as she didn't expect that Sirius would actually have an excuse. 

"Well, did you ever stop to wonder why he had a bouquet of golden flowers in his mouth, or did you just assume that he was going on a date?" Sirius said mockingly, staring her down. 

Satisfactorily enough for him, Nami wasn't looking too confident right now. "I—you mean, you actually—"

"I gave him the flowers. Beats me why he was in the forest in the first place, but the fact is that I _did _stumble around in the dark looking for the damned things, so the hexes you would like to unleash on me will be unfortunately unnecessary." It was his turn to smirk at her. Ha. Let her try to act all smug now…

"Actually, I think they still will be," Nami replied, grinning wickedly at him. "Here, catch." She tossed his wand at him, and he caught it, confused and for the moment off his guard. _"Slithro Treneir," _she said, waving her wand in a complicated fashion. 

"What are you—" Before Sirius could utter another word, he could feel his hair, his beloved hair, transfiguring into something—or more appropriately, a _lot of _things—alive and writhing. He had no idea what she had done yet, but he quickly got into a dueling stance, running through his mind for a perfect retaliatory hex. Nami must have sensed this, for she suddenly raised her wand again. 

_"Petrificus Ephemeralus!" _

Sirius felt himself becoming immobile as she cast the Temporary Full-Body Bind on him, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out why she didn't just use the Petrificus Totalus incantation, which was more appropriate if you wanted your opponent to just lie down there vulnerably, all ready to be hexed and gift-wrapped for your convenience.  

As he lay down on the grass, cursing himself inwardly for moving too slowly and giving Nami the most withering glare he could muster, Nami walked toward him and leaned over him so that their noses were barely two inches apart. "That's for telling me that I should've been put in Slytherin, and for that little prank you pulled in the Forbidden Forest," she said in a very, very quiet voice.  Sirius could feel her breath on his face and the way she stared into his eyes, like she was boring holes into them. She pulled herself back up into a standing position, towering over his form. 

"_Incantato__ Ennervatum," _she whispered, and Sirius could feel his hair, or what she had transfigured it into (which had frozen up too when she cast the Body Bind curse on him), starting to writhe again. Nami took out a mirror from her pocket and enlarged it, directing the reflective surface right at Sirius's face so he could view the damage that she had done.

Snakes. Hundreds of multi-colored, spaghetti-thin hissing snakes were attached to his scalp, their tiny fangs snapping and dripping what looked horribly like real venom. 

"Here, you might want this," Nami offered, putting a vividly colored mask over his face that served the purpose of preventing his "hair" from biting him. It had holes for the eyes, nose and mouth, and was effective in protecting him, but he looked utterly ridiculous. Nami smiled saccharinely at him, her eyes dancing amusedly. "See, I _do _have a heart, and the Body Bind will wear off after ten more minutes, if you were wondering about that. And don't even try to get back at me because I was just getting back at _you… _I'm already being charitable, Black; don't try to break that, or you'll find yourself with more than just snakes for hair." 

She turned around and walked away, looking back at him for a moment and tauntingly waving goodbye before disappearing at the end of the pitch. 

Sirius couldn't find himself getting the urge to throw insults at her retreating back, even if he really couldn't because the Body Bind prevented him from moving his mouth. He found himself thinking about her twinkling eyes and the way they looked _friendly _for a split-second, like they had yesterday, when he was in his dog form. He also found himself thinking about the fact that Nami Tzu _never_ ignored an opportunity to experiment with different hexes by using him as a guinea pig—and that attitude was something they mutually agreed to. So why didn't she take advantage of the situation? 

He thought deeply about these things (which made him worry about his own mental health) in the ten minutes that he waited for the Body Bind to wear off. He finally stopped when he realized he caught himself considering making up with Nami after five years of being at war with each other. Despite his inner self-disgusted reprimands about this suggestion, he admitted to himself that life would be so much easier if they were on much friendlier terms. And no, the fact that she had a nice smile and actually had an affable side to her had nothing to do with it… Really, it didn't.

Sirius sighed. He needed to talk to James.

*****  

Unfortunately for Sirius, James wasn't in the frame of mind to act like the voice of reason, as the bespectacled boy himself had his own problems to deal with. 

Thankfully, McGonagall was in a good mood that morning and settled for kicking James and Lily out of the Great Hall instead of doing detention, for inappropriate and uncouth yelling in the presence of two hundred people. McGonagall realized that this was not the most effective of plans, though, as James and Lily found it convenient to just continue their shouting match in the entrance hall, within hearing range of the whole Hogwarts population who was eating breakfast. Thus, at present, they were standing outside the front doors to the castle, yelling themselves hoarse, unable to just hex each other and be done with it (McGonagall had confiscated their wands). 

This was how Remus found them when he went outside to check if they'd killed each other with their bare hands already, and he shot Cheering Charms at them, just to be safe. Then he dragged a cheerful James away, leaving Lily wondering cheerfully why she was cheerfully standing out in the cold. 

"Hey, Lil! What're you doing out here?" Nami called as she got back to the castle from dealing with Sirius. 

Lily waved jovially at her. "Oh, hello! I don't know exactly why I'm out here, but it's a wonderful morning, isn't it?" she said in cheery tones, which left Nami wondering if James Potter managed to get a few of her screws loose while they were fighting. 

"Lily, it's about to rain," Nami pointed out, looking up at the darkening sky. 

"Rain is lovely! Most people feel quite sad and sentimental when raindrops fall heavily from the sky, but they should realize that the rain does wonderful things for nature! It cleanses the air and leaves a fresh feeling after it passes!" Lily smiled at her friend, whose eyes suddenly lit up.

"Oh—oh, I get it; you've been caught by a Cheering Charm, haven't you?" 

Lily merely continued to smile and took Nami's hand, dragging her down the front steps. "Come! Let us enjoy the rain—"

"Oh no we won't! I'm not taking any advice from a person who ends all her sentences with an exclamation point…" Nami muttered, stopping and pulling Lily back to the refuge the castle provided them. 

"I suppose staying inside would be fairly comfortable and warm," Lily reasoned merrily, changing course and bouncing up the steps and into the castle. 

"God bless us when the charm fades and you come back to being a homicidal rampaging anti-Potter maniac," Nami said aloud, not fazing Lily in the least.

Lily waited for her as she passed through the enormous double doors. "Where's Sirius? I saw you accompanying him out of the Great Hall five minutes ago." ****

"Accompanying? Er—if you say so," Nami replied, smirking inwardly. Although she did wonder how Lily could have possibly witnessed her escape when the redhead was too busy exchanging insults with James. 

"So, where is he?" Lily pressed. The effects of the charm must have made her forget about any grudges that people had on other people.

Nami took a moment to respond, as she was busy staring at the rain that had started to fall from the sky in buckets, and at the flashes of lightning that accentuated it. "He's just, uh, _enjoying the rain,_" she answered innocently. 

Lily looked happy (well, that was what the Cheering Charm was for, wasn't it?) and commented, "Oh, why ever didn't we join him?" 

_Because we aren't tied down by a Body Bind curse and we've got the wits to stay inside, away from that terrible storm? _Nami thought sarcastically, glancing at Lily, who was staring with glassy eyes out the window. _Er…make that 'at least one of us has got the wits to stay inside and drag the other along with her.' _"I think he's got enough company with him," she responded dryly, recalling the Medusa hair that she had given him. 

They went back to Gryffindor tower and it was then that the Cheering Charm started to fade…

"Where's Potter?" Lily asked, just as Nami was giving the password to the Fat Lady. 

"Blue cheese—why would you be looking for him?" Nami climbed over the portrait hole and waited for Lily to do the same. 

"I can't recall, oh, yes, I made a mental note to transfigure him into a cockroach and step on him," Lily replied, startling Nami, who thought that she still had the Cheering Charm on her.

Nami scanned the common room, where a few third years were working on Divination assignments (she figured that by the way they kept downing cups of tea and staring at the dregs, muttering and cursing). "Well, he's not here. And anyway, McGonagall's got your wand, right? You can't do anything about it until she decides that you're calm enough not to murder the guy." 

"I can just borrow your wand. It won't be as good, but if that'll at least make him mutate into a bug-human thing, then that would do," Lily said matter-of-factly. 

Nami sighed. "I think you should go lie down for a while," she said, pushing Lily up the girls' dormitory, ignoring her friend's token protests. 

It was a good thing she did that, because right as they disappeared up the staircase, James, Remus, Peter and what looked like a male Gorgon (you know, what you call Medusa and her two other snake-haired sisters) with a brightly colored mask emerged through the portrait hole. 

Remus and Peter cracked up whenever they glanced at their weird companion (the third years looked warily at him) and James looked grumpy. Sirius (Gorgon guy) made a beeline toward the third years, who shrieked and scattered their tea leaves and cups everywhere before running to the safety of the dorms. 

"Really, Padfoot, there was no need to scare them," Remus remarked, rolling his eyes at his friend's juvenile antics.

"Hey, if I'm gonna be stuck looking like this, I might as well make the best out of it," Sirius answered defensively, adjusting his mask.  They had been unable to find a countercurse for Nami's spell and it was Remus who suggested that maybe it would revert back to normal after a few hours. So now Sirius was stuck with snake hair for possibly the rest of the day (he hoped it wouldn't last all week). 

"Maybe if you apologized to her, she'd change it back," Peter piped up. 

"Me? Apologize to _her? _Are you out of your mind, Wormtail?" Sirius exclaimed. Peter paled and cowered, muttering almost incoherently "It was only a suggestion."

But as they ascended the stairs to the boys' dorm, Sirius couldn't help wondering if maybe, for once, he should heed Peter's advice. 

*****  

James sulked inside their dormitory room all afternoon. He and the rest of the marauders ate lunch in the kitchens—Sirius said that he didn't want any interaction with the rest of the student body until his hair was restored, and James didn't feel like having another row with Lily.  He had tried everything to think about anything else but that temperamental girl—he'd done all his homework, made fun of Sirius's hair, and even read the Daily Prophet (which he only did when he was extremely bored or when there was actually something newsworthy going on). That last one did help distract him a little though, because of the news about a Dark wizard who was coming into power and was wreaking havoc in the Muggle world. James vaguely remembered the name, Voldemort, and he recalled feeling a surge of hatred for the bastard, but that only led him in reminding himself that he also hated a certain redhead, and now he was back to square one. 

Peter and Remus had left the room thirty minutes ago, unable to tolerate James and Sirius's whining any further. That meant that both were left to their thoughts, as they weren't in a particularly talkative mood, and were wrapped in their own woes. 

Too many things were on James's mind, and he hated the fact that all of them had something to do with Lily Evans. He _hated _how she annoyed him even if she wasn't present. She was supposed to be predictable, like any ordinary perfectionist should be. But then she had to act all weird last night, making him feel like he was the scum of the earth for asking her why she hadn't dated anyone in school. It was just a _question_. A little on the personal side, but still, it wasn't like a popular girl like Lily could keep a fact like having a boyfriend a secret from her adoring fans. And non-fans. 

"What are you thinking, mate?" Sirius spoke up suddenly, causing James to sit up from his position on his bed. 

James was still slightly inclined to laugh at the state of Sirius's hair, which (he thought) was good as it somehow made him forget about his weird thoughts about Lily. Unfortunately, Sirius didn't seem to share his humor. 

"This isn't my fault, you know," Sirius said irritably when James tried to stifle a snigger. 

"It _was_ your fault. You pulled a prank on her first, remember?" James felt himself starting to lighten up, and Sirius's reaction made it all the better for him. 

Sirius scowled, though James couldn't see it, as he still had his mask on. "Why are we talking about me anyway? I asked you about you first." 

James paused, not wanting to elaborate on his thoughts. He already thought to himself that he was probably going insane for not thinking about anything but the girl he held contempt for more than anybody…

"You're thinking about Lily, aren't you?" Sirius said knowingly with an air of triumph. 

"What? I wasn't—" James started to say vehemently, but Sirius cut him off. 

"Tut, tut, my dear Prongs, don't try to deny it to yourself," Sirius mock-reprimanded, looking like he too was starting to feel more animated by the second. "I knew it. I knew you _liked her_…" 

"I do not like her, no matter how many times you try to insist upon it," James said hotly, thinking that his best friend had finally cracked. 

Sirius remained adamant about his newfound conclusion, however, which didn't help James one bit. "Sure you do. You suddenly took notice of her this school year, took pleasure in teasing her and making her mad so that she'd draw her attention to you, and even asked her if she had a boyfriend," he said as he counted off the reasons on his fingers. "Oh, and obsessing about her is definitely a big point."

"I am not _obsessing about her. _And I suppose you think that my doing everything I could to make her lose it in front of everyone is a way to make her fall madly in love with me?" James retorted sarcastically. 

His best friend appeared thoughtful for a moment (at least James thought he was, he couldn't determine Sirius's emotions at the moment unless he scrutinized his movements). "That could work. Don't forget, there's a thin line between love and—"

James groaned. "I am _not_ having this conversation again." Before Sirius could utter another remark, he added, "I don't think I'm the one with the problem anyway. What's up with you and Nami Tzu, Padfoot? Seems like you're starting to get soft with her because of _Snuffles…_" 

Sirius sat up straight, trying to look dignified. "_Going soft?_ I'm going to get back at her as soon as I get rid of this," he said, gesturing carelessly at the snakes piled like spaghetti upon his head. 

"You've had a lot of opportunities to get back at her after you were freed from the Body Bind. Normally you'd seek out revenge as soon as humanly possible," James pointed out, smirking as he turned the tables. Now _Sirius_ was the one being flustered.

"I—she—I was just being _philanthropic. _Returning the favor. She could have murdered me then and there when I was completely under her power but she didn't. That's a major change—practically a miracle for her, and you know it." Sirius stared back at him haughtily as if challenging him to contradict his point.   

James shook his head and sighed mockingly. "Tut, tut, my dear Padfoot, don't try to deny it to yourself," he chastised, repeating Sirius's words. 

Sirius was unable to think of a suitable comeback and was thoroughly annoyed because of this. "I think my Arithmancy book is calling my name," he said, opting for an escape from the conversation. 

"Are you sure it's not Nami? Listen, can't you hear her? _Snuffles?__ Snuuufffflllles, where are you?_" James laughed.

Sirius threw his copy of _Numerology and Grammatica _at him. 

*****  

Lily was trying (and failing) to start her Charms essay. It irritated her to no end, as she usually excelled in Charms (in all her subjects, for that matter) and now she couldn't even think of how to start. All she had managed to scribble down, in angry, jagged scrawls, were five words written over and over again. 

_James Potter is a prat._

_James Potter is a prat._

_James Potter is a prat._

She groaned and wondered if James had managed to aim a hex at her that would make her think about him nonstop, all for the cause of driving her crazy. It probably already did. 

Mistakes. Why did there have to be so many mistakes? She wouldn't have any problems like this if she didn't let James provoke her from the start. Why did he have to pick _her? _Why did he have to make her life harder than it already was? Sure, on the surface, people would give anything to have her life. But they had no idea what she had been through. What she was really like. And that part of her was slowly escaping through the crack that James had made in her armor.

James Potter is a prat.

***** 

James Potter, who didn't think himself a prat, sat alone in his dormitory room, wishing he had a Pensieve to siphon away all the thoughts in his head related to Lily Evans. 

He admitted to himself that he had grown curious as to what made Lily tick. He knew she was hiding something that even her closest friends in school didn't know about, and he wanted to know what it was. That was why he kept tormenting her (in a shallow sense), long after he had proven that she wasn't perfect, that underneath that cool and unflappable exterior, there was a fiery temper that, when lost completely, would make others scared for their lives. 

Rather than being annoyed at her, he was starting to feel sympathy for the redhead. And that was enough to scare him. Why should he feel any sympathy for the one person with whom he had a yelling match with every single day? He had half a mind then, when he had this realization, to hunt her down and have an argument with her again, just to prove that he was thinking wrong. 

But if he did that, he would be lying to himself. And if there was one thing that James Potter was, he was a very self-assured person. 

He decided in the end to keep up with his daily squabbles with her, to further the progress he had made in making her show what she was hiding from everyone, and to keep his…odd…feelings toward her in check.

He wasn't starting to _like_ her, was he? Because if he did, even in a platonic sense, then he was going to fall into her trap to make even him approve of her and forget that she was keeping something bottled up inside her. And the voice of Sirius in his head (he was now very worried that he really _had_ gone mad) that kept saying _"You like Lily! You like Lily!" _didn't help him much either. 

*****  

On the grounds, not too far off from the Whomping Willow, Sirius stood, waiting. He knew what he had to do before he lost his nerve. And in the distance, as he kept chanting over and over what his words would be, he spotted a figure walking toward him. 

He was thankful that the curse on his hair had worn off already, after five hours of agonizing over it. Otherwise, he might be provoked to say the opposite of what he meant to. Yes, he was going to apologize. For good. 

When Nami finally reached the point where he was standing, looking suspicious and clutching her wand within the pocket of her robes, he took a deep breath and launched into his prepared speech. He even tossed his wand to her, to assure her that he wasn't up to any mischief. 

She was silent all throughout his apology and only gave him a cool, indifferent stare, searching his eyes to determine whether he was telling the truth or making her fall into a false security so that he could pull a prank on her when she was caught unawares. 

Sirius finished talking, after much stuttering (he hated the occasions when he did that; he was usually very eloquent and confident with what he was going to say), and at the end she only said a simple "Okay." 

That was it? No word of protest? No suspicious remarks? Not even (and he was hoping she was going to do this one, as he felt that it was only fair that she should be as guilty as him) an apology in return? 

Then she gave him a small smile, a genuine smile all the same, and walked back to the castle without another word. She actually smiled at him. And he didn't have to turn into a dog to provoke it. 

That was enough for him.

*****  

In the two months that they had so far in their stay in school, the Hogwarts students grew accustomed to Lily Evans and James Potter's fights. They had a variety of topics to fight about, too many to list down and most of the time too petty to be relevant. 

On the other hand, it came as a surprise that the most famous pair when it came to mutual enmity in its highest form—Sirius Black and Nami Tzu—suddenly stopped fighting altogether. It seemed as if all the hostility they had for each other was channeled into their best friends, James and Lily, respectively. No one knew about Sirius's apology two months ago. 

Chloe had finally gotten over her crush on James and occasionally tried to play peacemaker whenever Lily and James fought. For the rest of the time, Remus and Peter were delegated to break the two apart. The teachers weren't too happy about the turn of events—you would have thought that a silent truce between Sirius and Nami would make their lives lighter, but by far Lily and James were worse, as they were both at the top of their classes and therefore were more skilled in dueling. 

In time these events were considered normal and uneventful, though the students (except the Slytherins) were quite disappointed that since James was always preoccupied with arguing with and playing pranks on Lily, he seldom pulled pranks on other people with his friends anymore…

"So, Nami, how come Sirius stopped playing pranks on you?" Chloe asked when the three friends were in their dormitory room on the last Saturday of October (Halloween was on Tuesday). 

Nami shrugged. "Who cares? What matters is that he's out of my hair. Too bad I can't say the same for Lily," she added, gesturing at their friend, who was sulking because James had managed to turn all her school robes pink overnight. Lily was so far unsuccessful in changing them back (they clashed horribly with her red hair), and had a sneaking suspicion that they would only turn back to black when she wore them at least once in class. 

"Why don't you just borrow somebody else's robes on Monday?" Chloe suggested to the distressed redhead. 

Lily frowned. It was an expression that she wore much more frequently this school year. "It's the principle of the matter. If I don't change them back, or wear them to class, he's going to think I lost to him and he's one up." 

"Why do you care so much about what James Potter thinks?" Nami asked, twirling her wand lazily and making various objects fly around the room. 

_Because he's the only one who ever doubted me, _Lily thought silently. She was wrong to think that James would leave her alone once she satisfied his efforts to make her lose her patience. Couldn't she just be left hiding her scarred life in peace? She left her friend's question unanswered aloud.

Chloe cleared her throat after a long silence. "I think I better get started on that killer History of Magic assignment in the library. Good luck with your robes, Lil. Or…do you both want to come along?" 

Nami shrugged. "I wanted to go take a walk on the grounds, but if Lily isn't going then I'd better stay here and keep her company." She gestured at Lily, who was now staring at her robes, her eyes unfocused.

"Huh? Oh—I don't mind staying here alone, you two go on right ahead with wherever you were planning to go," Lily said suddenly, looking up. 

Her two friends exchanged concerned looks. "You sure you don't want to come with one of us? It's Saturday, you don't need to wear your school robes," Nami pointed out.

Lily forced a smile. "No, really, I'll be okay. It's not like I'm sick or anything." 

The two nodded and left, telling Lily they'd see her later. 

Lily sighed and flopped down on her bed, shutting her eyes. Ever since this morning, she'd had a bad feeling, like something horrible was going to happen—or had happened. Something much bigger than a stupid prank.

But it wasn't as if James's prank didn't have an effect on her either. It was just that she felt as if this latest practical joke culminated all the things that he had done to her to make her feel miserable again. If it wasn't for him, all her bad memories wouldn't resurface to torment her once again. She would still be living her life of fabricated perfection. It didn't help her much back then, but it saved her the pain that she was feeling now. 

All her efforts at keeping a happy front and building a wall around her imperfections and painful experiences had left her emotional strength weak and vulnerable. She felt as if she was going to break if just one other thing would trigger her to do so. 

No more. She couldn't take any of this anymore. 

An owl swooped in through the window, bearing an envelope in its beak. Lily shakily opened it. Two things fell out—a piece of heavy parchment and an ordinary sheet of pad paper. When she finished reading their contents, she felt all the color drain from her face and her soul being torn off piece by piece.

This was the last straw. 

*****  

**~A/N~**

Cliffhangers. Gotta love 'em… 


	7. Release

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

**A/N ~ **I know, I know, late again. Due to complicated circumstances, I wasn't able to get hold of the Internet in more than a month. Well…without further ado…

_"Life is easier to take than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable."_

_~Kathleen Norris_

**Chapter 7: Release**

It was peaceful, out on the grounds. The only sounds to be heard were the rustling of the trees and the whistling of an occasional breeze overhead. And there were no other people strolling around. Nami liked it that way. Not a single bird was to be seen in the sky, except for a barn owl that she saw, with an envelope in its beak, swooping in the direction of the Gryffindor tower. 

As she neared the Forbidden Forest, her destination, somebody jumped out from the trees and tackled her onto the overgrown grass. 

"You idiot! Get off me!" she exclaimed, punching her assailant in the chest. "I can't breathe!" 

Sirius rolled off her, laughing and standing up in case she intended to chase him and whack him with a stick. Unbeknownst to their separate sets of friends and all the students, the two had formed an unlikely friendship ever since that fateful truce two months ago. They decided not to announce it to the whole school, though, because of the wild rumors that would no doubt circulate concerning their relationship. The two were on completely platonic terms, and it would be awkward if people started to think they were a couple, mostly due to all the "a fine line between love and hate" crap that Sirius liked to preach, as Nami pointed out. They were surprised to find the other as good company once they stopped jumping at each other's throat.

Nami stood up and glared at him as she brushed bits of grass and dirt off her. Undaunted, Sirius just grinned back and asked, "How did Lily take the prank that Prongs pulled on her?" 

"I don't know. It was hard to tell whether she wanted to hang him or chop him up piece by piece," Nami said mock-thoughtfully. "Why? Did you volunteer to be his spy, knowing that you could just ask me and he'd never know it and think that you're bloody brilliant?" 

Sirius sat down Indian-style on the ground. "That's a marvelous idea, but no. Nothing too elaborate. Prongs was just worrying about her reaction. I reckon he really _has _started to fancy her…" 

Nami rolled her eyes. "You told me that theory ages ago, and up to now I still can't see why you think that constant harassment can be a possible tactic in making someone fall in love with another. Besides, James was probably thinking of how Lily would get back at him. There's nothing romantic about _that_." 

"Very well then, would you like to bet on that?" Sirius asked confidently, staring her down. 

The raven-haired girl gazed back suspiciously. "I don't think so. With you, there are too many possibilities…besides, I don't like placing bets on my friends." 

Sirius grinned at her. "What's the matter? Can't even take a risk? If you're so dead set on them hating each other, then why won't you give it a chance?" 

Knowing that she had no choice, Nami sighed and gave in. "Fine. You set your conditions first." 

"Twenty Galleons says Prongs and Lily become official at the end of next week," Sirius said boldly. It was Saturday, so that meant that his bet would only take effect on or after the next Saturday. 

Nami looked at him critically. "Twenty Galleons? Isn't that a bit much?" she asked as she sorted through her money bag. 

"I can afford it," Sirius said defensively, holding up his much bigger and heavier bag and shaking it to make the coins inside jangle together. 

"Figures. There's no real risk for you, because you're filthy rich anyway and you won't experience any real loss." She smirked and emptied out her money bag. "Well then…I bet sixteen Galleons, twelve Sickles and fifteen Knuts that they will snog each other senseless under the moon and the stars during the Halloween Feast." 

Sirius just stared at her with his mouth agape in shock. "Are you _mad_? Just a second ago you were saying the exact opposite of what you're betting on! Are you going to throw away your savings for that? What are you on about?" he sputtered. 

Nami merely smiled sweetly at him. "I'm only showing you that I _do _take risks, and that I can prove you, Sirius Black, wrong, as I have already done time and time again."

"Liar. Give me an incident when you proved me wrong," Sirius demanded, crossing his arms in feigned irritation and offense. 

Nami's dark brown eyes twinkled in amusement. "Plenty. There was that time in the forest, when you said that you never knew girls could think about gruesome things without flinching, which means that you believed otherwise and that I had proven that the contradiction was true."

"That's not valid, it was an offhand comment that was a product of annoyance and exasperation, meaning that I wasn't thinking rationally at that time," Sirius retorted, remembering the time when they had that detention together. 

"You do realize that you're making it sound like you fall into random lapses of insanity from time to time," Nami said in a conversational tone. When Sirius merely scowled back at her, she said, "Okay, okay. On that same night, you unwittingly admitted to me that you were a complete prat—"

"Which I'm not," Sirius interrupted, still glaring at her. 

Nami smirked. "Wrong again. You were a complete prat _then_. Still are, as a matter of fact," she added, laughing when Sirius whacked her on the arm for that. 

"You offend me," said Sirius in a sniffy tone, pretending to be hurt. "I thought we were finally friends." 

Nami nodded solemnly, going along with his act. "I accepted you, even though you're a complete prat. Isn't that enough reason to say that I _am _your friend?" 

Sirius gave up and tackled her to the ground again, tickling her mercilessly. 

*****  

James, Peter and Remus were in the library. The first two were working on a Defense against the Dark Arts essay while Remus was idly watching them, having been finished with his essay on the day that it was assigned. 

Finally James couldn't take this behavior anymore, and burst out, "For Merlin's sake, don't just sit there and gloat like the DADA genius that you are and do something if you're going to stay here with us!" This earned him a hard glare from the librarian, which he promptly ignored. 

Remus, grinning amusedly at James's predicament, scurried off and returned with that day's edition of the _Daily Prophet_. "Happy now?" he mouthed to his friend, who scowled and went back to work. The werewolf noted that James had been unusually on edge after he had pulled that prank on Lily… 

He put it aside, however, and focused on the _Daily Prophet_. The pages were in wild disorder as it was the library copy and the people who had used it didn't bother much with straightening it up again after they had read through it. Remus noticed that he was on the Sports page and rifled through the newspaper looking for the headlines. He successfully found it (there were various thumb marks and smudges on it) and read the bold letters unfurled at the front: **You-Know-Who Strikes Again—Mass Muggle Killing at Little Whinging. **

(A/N – I have no idea about towns and cities in Britain, so let's just pretend that Lily lives in Little Whinging, OK?)

"Hey, doesn't Lily Evans live there?" Peter asked over Remus's shoulder, losing interest in doing his homework. 

James's head shot up from the piece of parchment he was furiously writing on. "What's that? Let me see," he demanded, stretching out his hand for the newspaper. Remus complied, wondering at James's strange behavior. 

James scanned the article and frowned. "They didn't mention names," he said, giving back the newspaper to Remus.

Peter shrugged. "'Course they didn't. They were only Muggles; I'm surprised the Daily Prophet put them in the front page at all," he said matter-of-factly in a very un-Peter-like way. 

"Yes…still…but—something's wrong…" James muttered vaguely. He jumped up from his seat. "I've gotta go!" 

His two friends stared at him in confusion. "Huh? But—" Before they could say another word, James was running (a bit noisily, too) across the library to the entrance, and Madame Pince gave him the most withering glare she had. 

"What was _that_ all about?" Peter asked Remus, finally looking like his usual baffled self. 

*****  

Lily brushed away her tears as she stumbled out of the kitchens after getting what she needed. In her other hand were the two letters she recently received.

_To Miss Lily Marie Evans:_

_It is with our deepest regrets that we inform you that your parents, William and Cassidy Evans, have perished in the mass killing of Muggles in your area, Little Whinging. Send us a form including the required information on any living relatives who you feel are capable of being your legal guardians. You will be sent an owl to notify you of your new guardian/s after the necessary procedures have been completed. Present any other inquiries to your Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, who will contact us if the need arises. Thank you for your cooperation, and once again we express our most sincere condolences._

_Sincerely Yours, _

**_Leticia Ascott_**

DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL ACCIDENTS AND CATASTROPHES

Ministry of Magic

Angrily, Lily continued to wipe at her face, even though a fresh batch of tears would still come after every dab she made at her eyes. They made it sound so formal and cold, as if her parents' deaths didn't matter to them at all…as if her mother and father were just people who were mindless enough to be caught in the crossfire of whatever magical mishap had happened.

But the letter that had pierced Lily more, and had made her set her mind to what she had to do, was the next:

_I hate you! Mum and Dad didn't do anything, and they didn't deserve to die. But those freaks that are just like you went and killed them! It's all your fault! If you weren't one of them, if you were just _normal_, this wouldn't have happened! Mum already had so little time left and you took even that away from her! I never want to see your freak face again! **You** should have been the one to die!_

The short note was not signed, but it was obvious who wrote it. Petunia's last words weighed heavily on Lily's conscience and had pushed her to run as fast as she could to one of the more secluded towers in the castle with a knife in hand. The house elves were gullible enough to give it to her without question, not knowing that she was experiencing more emotional anguish than she could ever take…not knowing that at that very moment, all she wanted to do was to give everything up, to end everything and release herself from all her pain.

She encountered no one as she made her way to the tower that was previously used as a "spare classroom" for Astronomy classes three years before—they had stopped using it because of a second year who had once leaned over the crumbling ledge and fell ten stories down before a student coming back from Quidditch practice came just in time to catch him. The authorities could have easily reinforced the tower's structure had they wanted to, but they decided not to and moved Astronomy classes to another higher, more convenient place—which was henceforth labeled the Astronomy Tower. 

Lily climbed up the steps, which were covered with a thick layer of dust because of misuse, and reached the top of the tower: a circular, open place with weather-beaten ledges that, in some places, crumbled to pieces, leaving large gaps. One step beyond these would mean jumping to instant death to the ground twenty stories below. But that wasn't the kind of suicide attempt she had in mind—all she had to do was slit her wrists with the knife, and that would be it. Nobody came to this place anymore, save for a few reckless students who were looking for a bit of danger. She would be long dead before anyone would find her. She wiped away the last of her tears and shakily held the knife up, examining it.

It gleamed silver in the sunlight, sharp as a razor's edge. The longer she stared at it, the more her fear ebbed away… This was what had to be done; nobody would care if she died… She had no one left, nothing to live for. She deserved to die. Her sister said so herself. Nobody would miss her. If they did, they would only _think_ that they missed her…they cared only for the perfect Lily, the person that she pretended to be. But they didn't know that she was the exact opposite…it was too hard to keep up with her charade. The people for whom she wanted to prove herself were no longer there for her…her father, who expected much from her…her mother, who she didn't dare disappoint, if only to make her happier in her remaining days…her sister, who had turned away from her years ago and had reached the ultimate point of contempt and hatred for her own kin…her friends, who never really knew her and the life she had chosen to lead because she had chosen to do so. 

She took a deep breath and brought the blade down to her wrist…

***** 

James frantically ran through the halls, searching for Lily. He had already gone to the Gryffindor tower…nobody had seen Lily anywhere near the dorms, apparently she had not gone back to the tower since that morning, when she was clutching a letter with the seal of the Ministry in her hand…

He stopped running, thinking through the places where Lily could possibly be if she were under considerable emotional turmoil. He just knew that something bad had happened to her; he couldn't explain it, but he _had _to find her immediately. He wrenched the doorknob of an unused classroom and flung the door open, looking inside. No Lily. 

_Where _is _she? _

*****  

Although Lily repeatedly told herself that she shouldn't be scared, that this was what she had to do, her hand couldn't stop shaking—from fear or from the frigid late-October air, she didn't know. She just couldn't bring herself to slash her wrists—not yet. 

She bit her tongue accidentally and dropped the knife. It made a clashing sound on the floor, metal to stone. 

_So you're standing on the ledge_

_It looks like you might fall_

_So far down_

_Or maybe you were thinking about jumping_

Something clicked in her head, a memory not too long ago. 

_"Ow!" Lily exclaimed as she bit her tongue by accident._

_"What happened?" a pajama-clad Nami asked concernedly._

_Lily winced at the pain but said, "Nothing, I just bit my tongue, is all…"_

_"Somebody must have_ _been thinking or talking about you at that moment, then! Quick, ask for a number."._

_"Ten!" Chloe announced, before looking at the Oriental girl in confusion. "What for?"_

_"A, B, C, D…" Nami appeared to be counting the letters off her fingers. "Letter J? Think of somebody whose name starts with a J."_

_"Er…" Lily said, trying to do what Nami said but wondering where she was going with this. _

_Chloe bounced up and down. "James Potter! Oh, Lily, I bet he was thinking about you just now!" she commented, looking at the redhead jealously._

Numerous other things swam into her head. Was this what it was like when you knew you were going to die? She read somewhere that people who were on the brink of death remembered all the pleasant moments of their lives, to give them solace before that one final goodbye to the world of the living. But she was never truly happy with her life when she found out that she was a witch. Things were so much easier before that… If she declined the offer to go to Hogwarts, would she not feel the way she did now? Would things have been better? 

She just couldn't keep up with her façade anymore. It had started breaking already this school year, and it was all James Potter's fault. Yes, it was his fault… If he hadn't nosed his way into her life and made her old wounds burst open, she would still be out there, acting out the life that she was supposed to lead…a perfect life, a life that she knew was a lie. But it worked, and that was what mattered…

_Now you could have it all_

_If you learned a little patience_

_For though I cannot fly_

_I'm not content to crawl_

She stared down at the knife lying harmlessly at her feet. She shouldn't have any doubts. Maybe it was partially his fault, but she was the one that made her life the way it was. She shouldn't put the blame on others…because she had to admit her own faults. She was responsible for her parents' deaths, and she was going to be responsible for her own death. Not anyone else.

*****  

After searching fruitlessly from room to room, passage to passage, James still couldn't find her. He was now out on the grounds, thinking there was a fair chance that Lily would be there. He felt as if there was a time limit to locating Lily, as if he had to be there before it was too late…

_So give me a little credit_

_Have in me a little faith_

_I want to be with you forever_

_If tomorrow's not too late_

But too late for what, exactly? It wasn't like he knew her…and they certainly weren't friends. Why was he darting around the castle like a madman, searching for the girl he loathed the most? Or the girl he _thought _he loathed the most…he wasn't so sure now. He was starting to get confused with the jumble of feelings inside him…

He was sure that her family had died in that Muggle attack. The Ministry only sent letters to minors when there was an accident or emergency caused by magic…when there was no adult around to receive the letter for the child. He knew…because he had seen it, after the day his aunt and uncle died… His eight-year-old cousin had cried for weeks… 

He hoped Lily wasn't going to do anything stupid. People usually did that, when they were overcome with grief. Like…snapping at perfectly polite people, or locking themselves in their rooms for days without eating, or—

James stopped short. _Or committing suicide._No way, Lily wasn't dumb enough to try killing herself, wasn't she? He was just jumping to conclusions, yes, that was it… He was being paranoid…

Wasn't he?

He had finally found out two months ago that Lily was suffering some kind of internal struggle that she tried to hide from everyone, including her friends. And at that same time of revelation, he had found out that—that he _liked_ her. There. He said it. He was falling for Lily Evans… _But_ _where is she now? _His inner voice suddenly shouted at him, snapping him out of his self-admitting thoughts. He started to panic. He couldn't take any chances. That letter arrived hours ago…Lily could be anywhere… And Sirius had the map with him! Damn, where was that goofball when you needed him? 

_But it's always too late when you've got nothing_

_So you say_

Somewhere, he heard people laughing. And coming toward him were two figures…two people who were the last thing he thought he would see together…

"—and then he said—" Sirius was narrating when James got to them. 

"Padfoot!" James shouted, pushing aside the thought of Sirius and his worst enemy laughing together instead of clawing each others' eyes out. 

Sirius paled and glanced from Nami to James. "Wait, Prongs, I can explain everything—"

"I don't care! Just give me the map!"

"See, I took Wormtail's advice and—what did you say?" Sirius looked at his best friend, baffled that James wasn't asking any questions as to why he was strolling around with his supposedly worst enemy. 

"The map! I've got to find Lily right now!" James demanded impatiently. 

Sirius still looked dumbfounded. Nami sighed and stuck her hand in one of Sirius' pockets, extracting the folded Marauder's Map. "Still an idiot," she muttered, shaking her head at Sirius. Sirius glared at her and she glared right back; after a moment they burst out laughing. 

James ignored this friendly little exchange and snatched the map from Nami's hands, frantically searching for a dot labeled "Lily Evans." 

"Why're you looking for her anyway? And might I remind you, James, that that is a very unwise thing to do, as she's still sour about that prank you did earlier," Nami reminded as she watched James quizzically. 

_There! _Lily was in one of the unused towers, and luckily for him it would only take a few minutes to get there… He broke into a run, hoping that it wasn't too late. He didn't know that Sirius and Nami were staring after him, wondering what got into his head. All that mattered was getting to Lily as soon as possible… 

Lily couldn't give up; she had so much to live for… 

_But you should never let the sun set on tomorrow_

_Before the sun rises today_

He _had _to stop her.

*****  

Lily knelt down and picked up the knife with her right hand, once again positioning it against her left wrist. 

_So you're walking on the edge_

_And you wait your turn to fall_

She bit her lip and listened to a voice in her head saying, _Do it, do it, do it now!!! _She didn't hear the soft pattering of footsteps in the direction of the staircase. She thought about her parents, and how much she loved them, and how she would never see their faces again, even if she wanted to stay alive. And how it was her fault that they were gone forever.

_But you're so far gone_

_That you don't see_

_The hands upheld to catch you_

It was now or never… She shut her eyes and winced as she started to slit her wrist…

_"Accio knife!"_

Lily's emerald eyes flew open at the sound of the male voice. She was so startled, she barely registered the fact that the knife had slipped from her fingers and into the waiting hands of James Potter. There was a shallow cut on her wrist. Blood came out of it and she watched, for a split second, in morbid fascination as the droplets traveled down her hand and dropped to the ground.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" James yelled, catching the handle of the knife deftly and throwing it aside. He reached Lily in three long strides and grabbed her unwounded wrist. 

Lily, snapping out of her reverie, turned at him angrily and said, "Leave me alone, Potter! This has nothing to do with you!" She tried not to think about the fact that James was as pale as a ghost, and that his hazel eyes were filled with worry and fear. How could he, when he hated her so much? He wasn't even supposed to be here! 

_And you could find the fault_

_In the heart that you've been handed_

_For though you cannot fly_

_You're not content to crawl_

"I don't care! Don't _ever _try that again! That's the dumbest and most cowardly thing you could do. It's stupid to throw your life away," James said fiercely, his eyes changing from concerned to furious. 

Lily's vision blurred as she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't do this anymore. She didn't know what to think. "I killed them. It was my fault… I have to do this…" Her shoulders shook and she tried to push him away. 

"And you think killing yourself would bring them back? What are you playing at?" James noticed her struggling and didn't let go. 

"You don't know anything! You brought it all back, I don't want to think about them anymore! I just want it all to stop…" Lily broke down completely, bursting out loud sobs and leaning into James for support. "This wouldn't have happened if it weren't for you." 

_If I am_

_Another waste of everything you dreamed of_

_I will let you down_

James' expression softened as the tears continued to slip down Lily's cheeks. He hated seeing girls cry; he never knew what to do and it made him feel extremely awkward. "So you're saying it's my fault," he stated. It wasn't a question. 

"N-no, it's just…" Lily continued crying. She hated crying in front of other people, and she hated how blubbering like a completely incoherent sap came along with it. And it was ten times worse because _he _was the one who saw her at her weakest. But she didn't care anymore, she was too confused. She didn't even push James away further when he wrapped his arms around her in a consoling hug.

_If I am _

_Only here to watch you as you suffer_

_I will let you down_

"Lily, I'm really sorry about acting horrible to you this year, and if you want to, I'll just stay away from you…if that'll make you feel better," James said hurriedly. Suddenly, Lily observed through watery eyes, he was trying to avert his gaze. 

Even though she felt so much pain weighing on her shoulders, Lily couldn't help but feel as if a tiny part of her stirred at his comment. "That's what I hate about you. You think the world revolves around you, Potter," she said spitefully. She tried furiously to get rid of all the tears, now acutely aware of how humiliating this all was. The "perfect" side was resurfacing once again… "My parents just died." A fresh batch of tears made their way out of her eyes and she gave up trying to stop them.

"I think you already said that," James said quietly, ignoring her insult. Lily was still shaking uncontrollably so he backed against the wall near the doorway and sat down, still holding her in his arms. Even though he knew that she was going through a terrible ordeal, he couldn't help but crack a small smile as he looked down at her. She looked like a helpless child, which was a big change from her normal composed, on-top-of-the-world appearance. 

He had no idea that this was the way things were going to turn out. If he only knew, then maybe he could have prevented Lily from doing what she did. Somehow, he felt that it was partly his fault that she was in this mess…

_The answers we find_

_Are never what we had in mind_

But then again, if he hadn't gotten in the way of her seemingly perfect existence, he wouldn't have found out that it was all just a mask that she put up. He wouldn't have known that she had a vulnerable side to her, an emotional weakness that left her hanging through life by a thread. 

He wouldn't have fallen in love with her.

And he decided that this time things were going to change. Just the same way Lily changed from being virtually faultless to being frail and depressed, just the same way that he had changed from hating her to liking her. 

_So we make it up as we go along_

All the things that made Lily what she was now were probably in the past, James decided. And she was too afraid to risk repeating it, whatever it was. So she had to hide it, keep it in a tight ball within her until a time came when it would resurface and wreck her. He promised not to let her make the same mistake. He almost smiled at the irony; not too long ago, he had sworn to make Lily Evans miserable just because she annoyed him with the way she had run her life. Now he knew that some vows were made to be broken.

_You don't talk of dreams_

_I won't mention tomorrow_

_We won't make those promises_

_That we can't keep_

He rested his chin on top of her head. She was still sobbing into his chest, but he had gotten over the awkwardness and just watched her let all the pain out, keeping his thoughts to himself and not uttering a single word. They stayed in that position for what seemed like hours to James, when he finally heard Lily stop sniffling. Thinking that she had fallen asleep, he stirred and made to get up. 

He laid her gently against the wall before standing up. Her eyes were closed and her face was unusually red and blotchy from crying. James figured that she needed some time alone and started to take a step toward the doorway when a hand tugged at his trouser leg. He turned around, surprised.

"Please don't leave me alone," Lily whispered in a hoarse and melancholy voice that was enough to break anybody's heart. James wordlessly sat down again beside her and she leaned her head against his shoulder, the tears silently flowing down her cheeks once more. At the corner of his eye, James noticed the knife. He summoned it to him, transfigured it into a stone and hurled it as far as he could into the distance. 

"Don't worry," he said softly, staring out at the cloudless blue sky that contrasted their moods greatly.

_I will never leave you_

_I will not let you down…_

 "I'm not going anywhere." 

*****  

**~A/N~ **

Pretty dramatic chapter, huh? I think the next one's gonna be the last…unless I change my mind and think of a brilliant idea for a couple more chapters…which I probably won't ^_^;; Anyway, please give me some feedback, preferably the positive kind…reviews are the only payment we fanfic authors get for writing… 


	8. Weird Emotions

**In the Way **

**By Dimantrien**

_"The heart has eyes that the brain knows nothing of."_

_~Charles H. Parkhurst_

**Chapter 8: Weird Emotions**

"Finished!" Peter exclaimed, scribbling the last words of his essay with a flourish. Madame Pince wasn't particularly happy for his triumph in successfully completing his DADA homework, and proceeded to kicking him out the library door, and, because she was extra pissed that day, booted Remus out as well. All the way to the Great Hall, the werewolf grumbled about overexcited gloaters and being unfairly caught in the crossfire, whereas Peter skipped through the corridors in an annoying fashion. 

As soon as they reached their destination, they spotted Sirius eating alone on the far right end of the Gryffindor table. 

"Padfoot," Remus greeted as he sat down, and Sirius raised his fork (which still had a piece of fried chicken on it) in salute. "Where's Prongs?"

"Drffo, muff shki fenf choo faifh chili," Sirius said through a mouthful of food. Remus rolled his eyes at his friend's abhorrent eating manners.

"You ate a piece of chili?" Peter misinterpreted confusedly.

Sirius swallowed and said, "I said, dunno, but he went to find Lily. Pass the potatoes, Wormtail."

Peter automatically reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes as Remus asked, a bit baffled, "He went looking for Lily _Evans_?" 

Sirius shrugged. "Know any other Lily?" 

"But he's heading straight for suicide if he does that!" (Remus doesn't know how right he is, although not in the way he meant… -_-;;) 

Sirius shrugged again. "It's his life to end, mate. Personally I think he accidentally drank a bit too much firewhisky, but then, I might be wrong and he actually drank firewhisky on purpose," he said matter-of-factly.

"Neither he nor Lily are here," Peter observed aloud, glancing at the other end of their table, where Nami and Chloe were seated. 

"'Course they aren't, Lily's probably stashing his body somewhere nobody could find it," Sirius responded cheerfully.

Remus whacked him on the back of the head. "Will you stop making those kinds of jokes? They're not very funny."

Sirius pretended that he had been hurt a great deal and said, "Jeez, somebody's uptight today. If you must know, Nami was the one who thought that Lily _would _hospitalize Prongs, as she so kindly commented when we were out on the grounds and Prongs ran into us—" He stopped midsentence, realizing what he just said. 

"You and Nami were taking a walk around the grounds _together_?" Peter reiterated in a louder-than-necessary voice. He and Remus stared intently at Sirius, ready to launch into a complicated series of questions about the whole deal.

Sirius squirmed in his seat and mentally slapped himself for having a big mouth.

*****  

1:00. James's stomach was growling. Beside him, Lily had fallen asleep. He really needed to get some food into his system, but he didn't think he could leave Lily alone like this…

Thinking that there was no other way for it, he stood up and carried Lily in his arms, figuring that with just a bit of luck and a few secret passages, he could reach the kitchens unnoticed. He started down the steps of the tower and before he knew it, he was in front of the painting of a fruit bowl, tickling the pear and getting inside the kitchens. 

"James Potter! What has happened to the poor miss sir is carrying, sir?" a floppy-eared house-elf piped up worriedly.

"It's kind of a long story. D'you think you can find somewhere for her to lie down?" The yet-to-be-named elf scurried to a corner of the kitchens, gesturing for James to follow. A few other of his fellow elves had already gotten the picture and laid pillows and blankets there. James laid her down and turned to Floppy Ears. "You wouldn't happen to have anything left over from lunch, would you, er…"

"Tassy, sir!" Floppy Ears said enthusiastically. "What would you like, sir? We have lots of food left over, sir. Tassy is at your service." Tassy bowed, and the other house-elves followed suit. Before James could open his mouth, four house-elves were setting a table and laying a platter of a whole fried chicken on it. Others flocked to the table and added bowls of different side dishes, like mashed potatoes, carrot-and-corn, and coleslaw. A container of gravy and a glass of pumpkin juice completed the scene. 

"Thanks," James said appreciatively, and the house-elves looked pleased. He glanced at Lily, who was curled up in the corner, and sighed contentedly. 

Things were getting better at last. 

*****  

A continuous scuffing sound jerked Lily out of her deep stupor. It seemed like a lot of people were milling around, but she couldn't be too sure. She opened her eyes, momentarily blinded by the glare of the lights overhead. Barely seconds later, a pair of watery tennis-ball-shaped eyes loomed over her and she immediately sat up, narrowly missing colliding her head with the one stopping over her. 

"You are awake, Miss. Zeep will inform James Potter at once," the house-elf squeaked, scurrying away after bowing low at the redhead. Lily looked around dazedly, starting to become aware that hundreds of house-elves were walking about, carrying pots and pans, cutting up meat, chopping vegetables to bits, washing dishes. She blinked.

_Where am I? _she thought, her half-asleep mind only just starting to churn its cogwheels and informing her that the activities taking place before her were connected to what you usually do in a kitchen. She stood up and walked around, watching the strange creatures busy at work. 

"So. Welcome to the Hogwarts kitchens," a voice spoke behind her. 

Lily whirled around, not too surprised; the house-elf had told her James was here, after all. As she looked at him, she felt the blood rushing to her cheeks—she suddenly remembered breaking down in front of him, sobbing like there was no tomorrow. She had probably looked so pathetic then…

"Are you hungry? There's plenty of food to spare," James said after a moment, when he realized that he wouldn't be able to get a word out of her. 

She shook her head, trying to smooth out the wrinkles on her robes. "Where's the exit?" she inquired in a slightly hoarse voice, wincing at how weak she sounded. 

James just stared at her like she was crazy. "You're not going anywhere until you eat something. You do realize that you look like a wreck. You don't want people to think you were trying to kill yourself just an hour ago," he responded in a matter-of-fact tone. 

"How sensitive of you to remark on that," Lily muttered sardonically, her anti-Potter instincts kicking in. She had actually thought he had started to care… No doubt he was going to stroll around the school later on, giving her smug looks, knowing that it was entirely in his power to divulge his newfound information to everyone and tarnish Lily's reputation permanently. When was she going to stop being tortured? Why did he have to—

"Sorry. I guess I really don't know how to act in these kinds of situations," James apologized, suddenly keen at avoiding Lily's eyes. "But I _am _aware that telling you that I'm sorry for you will only make you feel worse, and then you'd just bite my head off for implying that you're inferior, or whatever." 

Lily's expression softened as she realized that he was right. He _had _gone out of his way to save her, and she had to be grateful for that. She silently moved toward a table where a few house-elves had piled liberal amounts of food onto, and sat down. __

Nothing was said between them for a good part of Lily's meal, but as she started picking on the carrots on her plate, she looked up albeit a bit timidly and said in a soft voice, "Thank you…for stopping me from making a big mistake." 

James looked surprised but recovered quickly. "No problem. Anyone else would have done the same…" he trailed off, averting his eyes again. 

The redhead stared intently at him. Nobody knew where she had been at that time, so how did he find her? _Why _did he look for her? It wasn't like they were friends, in fact, it was the exact opposite. He didn't understand the way her mind worked, thinking that her perfectionism was beyond him. He knew next to nothing about her, but by some miracle he realized at the precise moment that she was trying to end it all and came to her rescue. 

James glanced at her and she felt the blood rush to her face, aware that he had caught her staring. She thought she saw a hint of a blush on his cheeks too, but it was entirely possible that she had just imagined it. "Remember what I told you a few hours ago? Trying to kill yourself is the most cowardly thing you could ever do. Instead of facing your problems, you'll opt for the easy way out. You think that no one will care about you once you're gone, that they never really knew you well enough to stop you. But the truth is that you're just afraid to show them the real you, the one who isn't perfect. How then can they help you, if you keep all the burdens to yourself? Nobody's perfect, Lily. That's why you despised me so much, because I was the only one who saw through your act and threatened to ruin it."

Lily mulled over his words, saying nothing. She knew James was right, and maybe he always had been. Maybe he started out trying to just torment her for his own amusement, but it had stretched to something more than that. He was the only one in a long time to realize that she wasn't happy with her life. Maybe he really did know more about her than she had given him credit for. He knew the _real _her, at least, and that was always enough. But still…something just didn't fit. He wasn't supposed to help her…he didn't have anything to gain by doing so. 

With all her thinking, she hadn't noticed that James was already halfway toward the entrance to the kitchens, probably thinking that he wasn't going to get any answers from her this time. "Wait," Lily suddenly blurted out, making him stop short. She stood up and walked up to him. "Why are you being so nice to me?  Why do you care?" She had to know. 

James turned around and gave her a small smile, making her feel strangely lightheaded. "I just do. Does there have to be a reason?" He disappeared through the exit, leaving a confused Lily in his wake.

Something was amiss. People who hated you didn't have a complete turnaround overnight. They aren't supposed to like you. They aren't supposed to know how you really feel deep inside. And they aren't supposed to do life-changing favors for you and make you feel weak in the knees by staring straight into your eyes. 

Unfortunately, her usual levelheaded logic failed her in all aspects, leaving her mind in a tangle of confused emotions and thoughts.

*****  

The continuous sound of quill scratching against parchment made just a little noise, but in a dead silent room with only two non-conversing people in it, it was loud enough to drive an impatient person crazy. 

Chloe stood up from her study desk and threw her loaded quill onto the table in frustration, splattering black ink all over the wood, her parchment, and the back of Nami's hand. "Where _is _she?!" 

"Will you get a grip?" Nami grumbled, putting down her own quill on top of her half-finished DADA essay and wiping at her stained hand with a cloth. 

"That's easy for you to say. Your pretty li'l head is chock full of brilliant thoughts on the wonderful world of Defense against the Dark Arts, which you pour over your parchment in fluent, intelligent sentences, while I, on the other hand, need Lily's help to be able to formulate the first line! And she's _not here!_" Chloe continued ranting in this fashion, while Nami rolled her eyes and gave up on the cloth, discarding it and using magic to remove the ink from her skin.

"First of all—"

The door opened and in came Lily, looking a little pale but otherwise perfectly fine. 

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you!" Chloe exclaimed gleefully, dragging Lily over to the seat beside hers. 

"You have?" Lily asked nervously, although her two friends didn't seem to notice her tone.

"Actually, she was moping around for an hour, walking around in circles and boring a hole in the floor while waiting for you to show up," Nami piped up. "Hardly qualifies as 'looking all over for you'."

Chloe gave her a playful glare and said, "You're in no position to go around teasing others, especially people who found out that your so-called archenemy, Sirius Black, takes regular pleasant morning strolls with you out on the grounds." She smirked triumphantly when Nami stopped scribbling for a moment.

"And what do you mean by that?" the Japanese girl said slowly, dipping her quill into her ink bottle and resuming her work.

"Oh, I just heard Remus and Peter teasing Sirius about it; you can't deny it to me," Chloe said slyly. 

"Who said I was denying it?" Nami countered, finally regaining her composure.

"So you admit that you were keeping your relationship with him secret?"

"I admit to taking regular pleasant morning strolls with him out on the grounds," Nami retorted. "No clandestine affairs, no romantic conquests—"

"Really? Sneaking around with him at the crack of dawn seems pretty clandestine to me…"

*****  

Lily sighed as her friends continued bickering, unmindful of her lack of comment. This Sirius-and-Nami business was a shock to her too, but not as shocking as her strange feelings toward a certain messy-haired boy. She loved her friends dearly, but she decided that she wouldn't tell them about any of the events that transpired just hours before. She just wanted to be alone. And think.

"Li-leeee, just give me a hand already," Chloe wheedled abruptly when Nami threw her hands up in defeat and exited the room, mumbling about people who didn't understand platonic boy-girl relationships. Lily glanced at the latter for a moment before she disappeared behind the door, and Chloe said dismissively, "Don't worry about her; I'm sure she just went over to Sirius, wherever he is. She's bound to confess her secret crush on him sooner or later, and then the two of them will make it official by going to the Halloween Feast together…"

"They're holding a ball on Halloween?" Lily asked quizzically.

Chloe looked at her disbelievingly. "Didn't you hear it during lunch? Some rich kid in seventh year complained about how there hadn't been a ball in Hogwarts in ages, and she used her father's influence to persuade the faculty to give consent to a Halloween ball…since it was so last-minute, a lot of girls flew into a rage because they hadn't prepared for it at all, and there are only three days left and no one had dates yet—"

"Why would we be having a ball at this time? There's nothing to celebrate—well, Halloween, I suppose, but the feast's quite enough for that—and like you said, it's such short notice. They could have considered moving it to Christmas, though it would still be completely pointless, as most students go home for the holidays," Lily said matter-of-factly. She didn't like the idea of a ball at all; the next few days would be quite hectic for most students and she wouldn't get any peace. That was all she wanted right now, peace and solitude and time to be alone with her thoughts…was that too much to ask for right after a suicide attempt?

"Well, this Ravenclaw—she's the rich one I was talking about—has plans for the Christmas holidays with her family so obviously a Christmas ball was a no-no for her…can you believe how demanding…" Lily tuned out her friend's descriptive account of the news, thinking that maybe if she kept to herself for the next three days, no one would notice her absence during the dance…she could just go eat in the kitchens, might as well make use of the newfound information that James had revealed to her…

"…why am I telling this to you anyway? You'd know all about it, Dumbledore explained the important parts in the Great Hall," Chloe finished, looking at the preoccupied Lily expectantly. "Wait. You weren't at lunch, were you? Where _have _you been all this time?" 

Lily snapped to, her mind racing for answers to the dreaded question she had wanted to avoid. _Oh, nowhere important, really…just in a tower where I was trying to kill myself…_she mentally answered. "Library. Had to finish some last-minute work." She thanked the gods that she had been extra-diligent for the last few days and had done most of her homework. 

Still, Chloe had a suspicious glint in her eye, and Lily breathed a sigh of relief when her friend decided not to comment on it. "Well, the good news about having a ball on Tuesday—not that I think it's not a good idea, mind you—is that they're canceling all the Monday classes so the students have time to prepare. They've also allowed us to go to Hogsmeade until tomorrow, for any preparations. I _do _wish they'd announced it sooner—all the shops will be brimming with students and we all know that it takes _ages_ to pick the best dress robes…"  

"Why are you doing your essay, then, if we have Monday off?" Lily asked, stopping her friend from going into a long lecture on the process of shopping for clothes and accessories. 

Chloe's eyes widened, as if Lily had just said something horrendous. "Are you kidding? I have to get all this work out of the way; I won't have time to do them in the next few days, what with the shopping and preparing and—oh, why am I prattling on like this? You have to help me with this dumb essay _now_…"

*****  

The next day, Sunday, Lily and her friends set off for Hogsmeade at the ungodly hour of 7 o'clock in the morning, much to Lily's protest and Chloe's insistence. ("Why are we going so early? I don't even think that the shop owners know that there's a seven o'clock in the morning!" "Just get up and at it! They'll have known all about the ball, I suppose, we'd get a good head start!") Nami too was more than a little annoyed at Chloe's way-too-early wake-up call, but grudgingly admitted that it was wise to get ahead of the others. Unfortunately when they got there…

Nami yawned, surveying the mob of girls crowding _Madame Maeve's Boutique_. "Where'd all these people come from?" she asked sleepily. 

"I haven't a bloody clue," Lily said grumpily, glaring at Chloe. "Mind explaining to us why the rest of Hogwarts' female population had the same brilliant idea that you did?" She was still hung over her very recent suicide attempt (which, of course, she didn't share to her two companions), and the added fact that she had no intention of attending the ball made her feel all the more impatient and short-tempered. 

"Oh, just shut up, both of you," Chloe responded, scanning all the clothing and robe shops in the near vicinity. All of them were full of students. "Why don't we look at accessories and makeup while everyone else is busy playing dress up?" She didn't wait for an answer and dragged them to a jewelry shop. Which, predictably, was chock-full of rabid shopping students. "_Honestly,_" she exasperatedly said aloud, wheeling back around to find another store. "C'mon, Lily…Nami—"

The only responses she got were a soft snore and an incoherent mumble, as her two friends were slumped against the shop's wall, sleeping peacefully. 

*****  

The Three Broomsticks was, as was usual on a Hogsmeade weekend, filled with people, and in one corner beside a window sat the marauders, who were armed with a mug of butterbeer each. Sirius was energetically telling the story of how he got his date to the ball, and among his three mates only Remus seemed remotely interested. Peter was still worrying about how _he _would get a date on such short notice, and James was miserable because he already _had _a date. He had made a vague promise to one of his many admirers that he would go with her to the next big social event that would happen at Hogwarts, and since the school hadn't had a ball in years, he had forgotten all about it. Unfortunately for him, the girl he had made the promise to had an excellent memory, especially for things which concerned James Potter. 

"…so I'm all set for Tuesday, then. What about you, Prongs? You're going with Charlotte McAllister, right?" Sirius asked, a bit of a slur in his voice, as he had mixed a bit of firewhisky into his butterbeer. 

James groaned in reply, causing the half-drunk Sirius to perk up a bit. "What's the matter? She's a fine catch, mate. Beautiful and smart—inherently so, I s'pose, being a Ravenclaw—and not a bad kisser. Definitely not," he related, grinning in an inebriated way. 

"Alright, that's enough alcohol for you, my friend," Remus announced, starting to get fed up with all this talk about dates and the Ball; he was getting worried that his friends had all been possessed by dance-obsessed girls in the last half-hour. "Let's go to Zonko's, then, shall we?" He dragged Sirius off his chair and across the floor halfway out of the pub, before looking back at James and Peter, who were still sitting at their table. "You guys coming?"

"In a minute," Peter replied, raising his still half-full mug. "Why don't you go ahead and we'll meet up with you later?" 

Remus nodded in assent, saying that he would find a Sobering Potion somewhere for Sirius while waiting. After a moment, the two disappeared beyond the door leading outside. 

When they had gone, James continued mumbling to himself and Peter looked absently out the window, as if he would miraculously find a suitable date passing by. He spotted several girls and turned to James, asking eagerly, "D'you think Nami Tzu would agree to go to the ball with me if I asked her?" 

James snorted not-so-inaudibly over his butterbeer, momentarily snapping out of his glum mood. "Not trying to burst your bubble, Wormtail, but I don't think you have much of a chance with her. That girl can be…dangerous when she wants to be—not your type of girl at all. Besides, doesn't she have a thing for Padfoot?" 

"No, she doesn't," Peter insisted. "Padfoot made that clear already. Might as well hold him on his word, right? Besides, d'you think I'm afraid of a girl?" he challenged indignantly in his squeaky voice. It would have been hilarious seeing Peter like that, if James was in a normal state of mind, but he was too lethargic at the moment. Instead, he glanced out the window at the subject of their discussion. 

And saw who she was with. 

He straightened in his seat, his eyes fixed on Lily. She looked perfectly…_normal, _he should say, as if nothing had ever happened the day before. She was apparently arguing with Chloe, who was holding several enormous paper bags full of…whatever girls bought when a social even was coming up, in front of a cosmetics shop across the street from the Three Broomsticks. Nami was off to the side, looking bored. 

"…and I've never done anything to make her angry, unlike Padfoot, so she's not bound to hurl hexes at me anytime soon…" Peter went on. 

James, still staring at the three girls, or particularly, at _one _of the three girls, interrupted him. "Look, Pete, I've gotta go somewhere first. D'you mind telling that to Moony and Padfoot?" He glanced back at his friend, who still had a determined look on his face. 

"So, you think I should go for it then?" the smaller boy queried, as if James's lack of argument were a sign of resignation. 

"Er-yeah, sure, whatever," James answered distractedly as Chloe and Lily appeared to have reached an agreement. Chloe and Nami entered the shop, while Lily waved at them and started walking away. James leapt up from his chair and practically ran out of the Three Broomsticks, but when he reached the street he didn't see her anywhere in sight. He peered over the heads of students passing by and caught a flash of red hair to the far left. 

When Peter strolled out of the inn, he saw James running down the road, dodging people walking past or apologizing to the unfortunate ones that he knocked down in his hurry. 

_What's up with Prongs? _he wondered as his untidy-haired friend's figure grew smaller and smaller in the distance. He started to cross the street, shrugging and dismissing the thought.

*****  

Lily kept walking until the outskirts of Hogsmeade village, where the shrubbery grew wilder and the houses fewer. She finally stopped when there seemed to be no more people in the near vicinity, beside an isolated pond with lots of unmanageable weeds about. Sighing and thinking that she would get some alone time at last, she sat down on the grass Indian-style, laying her shopping bag beside her. 

_Finally, some well-deserved peace and quiet… _She stared out at the calm water, occasionally spotting a small fish or two darting near the surface. The thing was, she really _didn't _want to go to the ball, besides, who would she go with? She didn't feel like forcing polite conversation with a random date she barely knew—she didn't have any close guy friends that she could go with, either. And she didn't have any particular boy in mind…

She closed her eyes, and instantly, an image of a messy-haired, bespectacled boy entered her mind. Fine, so she _did _have somebody in mind, but it wasn't like he would want to ask her to the dance. James Potter was known for being a guy whom girls had to line up to get a date from, and she was sure that she wasn't anywhere on his waiting list…

Besides, the guy hated her, didn't he? So what if he saved her life? He was still the same James…the same old, carefree, _arrogant _James…

Or was he?

He had certainly changed in some ways, like in the way he always seemed to be around when Lily needed help, like in the way he had made her fall for him…

Lily buried her face in her hands, trying to calm down. _Okay, stop it, _she said to herself. _It's not like you have a chance with him anyway. It's not like he treats you as something more than a friend…_

_It's not like he's your friend from the start, for that matter—_

She heard the sound of footsteps slightly muffled by the grass. Her eyes flew open and she looked over her shoulder, startled. James Potter stood a few feet behind her, grinning sheepishly. 

She turned back around and sighed, feeling her solitude melting away. _Of course.__ Just start thinking weird thoughts about him, and he comes to you like a well-placed Summoning Charm…_

"Hey. Sorry for disturbing you… Mind if I sit here?" James asked, walking to the spot beside her. 

"Like I have a choice?" Lily muttered, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden. 

James just grinned that heart-stopping grin of his. "Of course you do. You could tell me to bugger off and leave you alone, if you wanted." Nevertheless, he took Lily's reply as consent and plopped down on the grass beside her.

After a moment of silence, James spoke up. "So, is that for the ball on Tuesday?" he asked, pointing to the paper bag on Lily's other side. 

Lily nodded and groaned again, remembering her predicament. 

"What's wrong?" James asked, frowning. 

"Is it really mandatory to go to the ball? Because I really don't feel like going…" Lily trailed off, wishing she hadn't answered. He didn't have to know that, but she just had to open her mouth, didn't she? 

James looked at her skeptically. "Not go to the ball? But that's the first one—and probably the last—that we'll be having for the rest of our school days in Hogwarts!" 

The redhead cracked a smile at that. "You sound like Chloe," she remarked, almost laughing at James' immediate reaction, which was shutting up and trying to put on an indifferent, I'm-not-a-girl-and-I-don't-care-about-the-ball-_that_-much expression. 

"So who're you going with?" James finally asked after another pause. 

Lily sighed. "James, what did you really come here for? I'm sure the dance is a _thrilling _topic, but that's not what you want to talk to me about, is it?" she responded a bit sarcastically. Being a little too close to him and feeling discomfort because of it made her feel just a tad more irate and desperate to hide…whatever feelings she had for him at the moment.

James adopted a serious expression which was a distinct difference from his trademark confident grin. "Well, I've been thinking for quite some time now…"

"You _think_? Well, that's certainly a surprise, James," Lily quipped.

James scowled at her. "Very funny. Are you going to listen to what I want to say or not? Because it's not exactly easy…"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry. Go on."

"I know that ever since the start of the school year I've teased you relentlessly and made you feel miserable quite a few times—"

"Too true," Lily interjected, rolling her eyes. She caught James's eye and shut up, nodding for him to continue. 

"And, well, I know I apologized to you already, but I thought…maybe we could be, I dunno, friends? You know, a new start and everything. To make up for all the stuff I did." James looked at her expectantly, his hazel eyes staring straight at her emerald ones. 

Lily broke his gaze and looked away, feeling her cheeks tingling slightly. "You've already made up for it. More than enough," she replied softly, knowing that _he _deserved something from _her, _and not the other way around. "You don't owe me anything. And with the tons of friends you already have, I think I'd hardly be significant in your social circle."

James just shrugged and smiled at her again. Why did he keep _doing _that? Smiling for no reason. It made her feel…she couldn't explain it, but she knew that if he kept smiling at her he would find out what she felt about him soon enough… "I'm starting to re-evaluate my opinion of you. Besides, you can never have too many friends. And I must say that you, Miss Evans, need a couple more to make you loosen up…" He tapped his index finger on her forehead, still grinning. 

Lily leaned back slightly from his touch. She already knew what he meant by "loosening up." He was being too nice to her…unusually nice, although the present circumstances might have been responsible for that. "Are you trying to say that I'm uptight?" she retorted, knowing full well that he probably did.

But James just shrugged, the grin never leaving his face. "I'm saying that you need to live—_really _live—a little. No harm in that, right?" He winked at her, making her fight to control the blood vessels in her cheeks. Damn him for having that effect on her. "So, friends?"

Lily sighed resignedly, and she felt her lips forming into a smile. What was the harm in it, really? "Yeah," she replied, and James's eyes lit up. "Friends."

*****  

**A/N ~ **Obviously this isn't the last chapter, which is what I promised in Chapter 7…sorry about that—wait, the longer, the better, right? Chapter 9 will definitely be the last…anyway. I might not be able to update in the next two weeks though, because my parents took my PC away from me…but I'll post the final chapter as soon as I can manage. 


	9. The Zenith of Everything

**In the Way**

**By Dimantrien**

_"Love sees a reason which reason cannot see."_

_….. (Dimantrien – I forgot who quoted that…)_

**Chapter 9:  The Zenith of Everything**

Most older students who knew Lily Evans and James Potter well couldn't ignore the fact that they were suddenly walking the school halls side by side, talking pleasantly, and _smiling _at one another. Even laughing, on some occasions. The different houses had mixed views on the matter, however: the Hufflepuffs, being the patient, friendly bunch that they are, said that it was about time that those two learned to get along and "set aside old differences." On the other hand, Ravenclaws were heard explaining that Lily and James were riding on a bet of some sort and were forced to act that way (convincingly, of course), as there was no logical explanation to why the mutual enmity between the two of them could convert to amity overnight. The Slytherins were quite content to conclude that they always knew that Potter was bound to lose his marbles someday (not that he hadn't already, they added), and that this was the last straw.

Both subjects being Gryffindors, however, the students in their own house had other opinions. This, Lily found out on Monday afternoon when she went to her dormitory room after stealing a snack from the kitchens (with James, who else?)…

"Hey, Lily, where've you been?" Nami piped up as soon as Lily entered the room.

Lily looked at her, startled. She hadn't noticed her two friends sitting on Chloe's bed, facing the door…_waiting_ for her. She knew they were waiting for her by the way Chloe was picking at her nails (which she did whenever she was bored) and by the smirk on Nami's face, which implied…something. A certain something that Lily had avoided talking to them about ever since the day before, which was the fact that her friends knew of her sudden closeness to James Potter.

"Just…out," Lily answered carefully. She hadn't thought about how to explain to her friends why James and she were on good terms with each other—she couldn't just say "Well, there's been a life-or-death experience between the two of us, no big deal," could she?

"Out where?" Chloe asked, her eyes twinkling.

Lily shifted uncomfortably. "Er…" Simultaneously, Nami jumped up and circled around Lily, as if looking at her from all sides would reveal her previous location.

"She's been to the kitchens," Nami announced finally. "Bread crumbs on her robes, a bit of cream from a chocolate éclair at the corner of her mouth, and there's a smell of roast chicken about her." She smiled in satisfaction at her observation.

"You're _smelling_me?" Lily exclaimed incredulously, backing away from the Asian girl. Nami gave her a "had to do it" shrug and glanced at Chloe, who was smiling mischievously.

"So, Lily…you're breaking the rules now, are you? Sneaking off to the kitchens…why, somebody might think that a troublemaker was starting to grow on you…" Chloe remarked in a sly tone.

Lily felt her face growing hot. "I had to go to a last-minute prefects' meeting, remember? I missed lunch, and I was hungry so…"

Chloe nodded. "Yes, that's justifiable. It was just quite odd how the other prefects turned up in the common room an hour ago, and they all said they ate a late lunch in the Great Hall."

"And isn't it a coincidence how our other sixth year prefect didn't show up either? Remus Lupin—oh wait, he was prefect last year…and I'm quite sure somebody else relieved him of his post…" Nami added, feigning uncertainty. "Who was it again, Chloe?"

"Oh, it can't be Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black is too unqualified in the disciplinary sense…so it must be…James Potter."

"That's right, I seem to recall him and Lily entering the common room at the same time after last week's prefects' meeting, only they were glaring at each other then." Nami nodded at the blonde.

"Funny how they both disappeared at the same time, though…"

"Some people might start to conclude that they had actually been _together, _wherever they were…"

"All right! He accompanied me to the kitchens and we ate lunch there. Are you happy now?" Lily said exasperatedly as her friends grew identical triumphant smiles.

"Well, what did you talk about?" Nami queried, dropping the act at once.

"Did he ask you to the dance?" Chloe demanded excitedly.

"We just talked about…stuff, and—why would he ask me to the dance?" Lily stuttered, flushing pink.

The two girls in front of her gave each other knowing looks. Chloe coughed mock-discreetly and proclaimed, "We have come to the conclusion that you have fallen for James Potter."

Lily's eyes widened. Why did they know? _How_ could they know? "I-I have not _fallen _for him! What c-could have given you that idea?!"

Nami rolled her eyes. "Smooth, Lily. Real smooth. Next time you intend to lie to us, you might want to control your stammering."

"And learn how to control the blood vessels in your face, at that," Chloe added, stifling a giggle as she stared directly at a tomato-red Lily.

"You…I mean, oh, _fine._" Lily sighed resignedly. She might as well admit it. Besides, she didn't need to give them another excuse this way; they would just assume that the "fine line between love and hate" applied to her situation and her falling in love with James was just playing into the hands of fate.

"Lily is in lo-ove," Chloe singsonged, dancing around Lily with a pillow in hand. "Don't worry Lily, we're not going to give you away. We're just going to nudge you in the right direction tomorrow so that everything will go smoothly…"

"Oh, shut up," Lily groaned, flopping onto her bed. Chloe's response was to climb up onto the bed after Lily and bounce on the mattress, saying "in love, in lo-ove, in looooove" repeatedly. "Is she always like this?" Lily addressed Nami, who was thoroughly amused with Chloe's antics and giggling.

"When it comes to love and matchmaking? Yes, she is," Nami replied.

"I never knew it was this annoyi—Chloe! Stop bouncing on my bed!" Lily exclaimed. Naturally, Chloe paid her no mind. Lily groaned again and covered her head with a pillow. "This is going to be a long day…"

Nami, having controlled her laughing fit, finally managed to look at Chloe with a straight face and told Lily solemnly, "I'm worried about how she'd act if _she_ were the one in love."

"Prongs, what's up with you and Lily?" Sirius said immediately as soon as James shut the door behind him. James could see the huge, I-know-your-secret-and-you'd-better-not-hide-it-from-me grin on his best friend's face.

James scowled at him. "Gee, I dunno. What's up with you and Nami?" he retorted, and much to his irritation Sirius's smile didn't falter one bit. Sirius was smart enough to see through almost all of James's excuses—he had to think up a really good explanation on how there was nothing between him and Lily… All right, so he _did_ have feelings for her, but he knew it was entirely one-sided and Sirius didn't have to know that.

"Me and her? We're just friends. If we weren't, I would've gone ballistic when I saw Wormtail asking her out yesterday. Have you heard about that yet? It was hilarious; Wormtail's stuttering was worse than usual and his face was as pale as a ghost. You'd think he was the king of the hill when he strolled over to her with his chin up and his chest out, but when he got within three feet of her he broke down and became a bucket of nerves. Nami, Lily and Chloe just stared at him until he opened his mouth a minute later and…"

James rolled his eyes. Maybe he didn't need that explanation after all; Sirius would probably monopolize the conversation again. As usual.

"And, predictably, she turned him down. I mean, could you imagine them dancing together? Asians are generally petite, but Nami's still at least five inches taller than Wormtail. And if she were wearing _heels_…"

Sighing, James turned the knob and put one foot out into the hallway.

"…the fact that he's got two left feet won't improve his chances either. Hey, where are you going?" Sirius stopped narrating long enough to look at James expectantly for an answer.

"Er…I'm going to—" James heard footsteps on the stairs and saw Remus.

The werewolf stood next to James. "Hey, guys. I just forgot my—"

"Moony, there you are! Padfoot's got something to tell you," James said jovially, pushing Remus into the room.

"Huh? But I've got homework…"

James stepped out of the room and waved. "I'll be going now. You two just go and have a nice, long chat."

Sirius' eyes lit up. "Oh yeah, Moony, you weren't with me that time! I've got a great story to tell you…"

The last thing James saw before closing the door was a protesting Remus, quills and parchment in hand, doomed to be stuck listening to Sirius until somebody else came round to replace him. Yes, with his best friend, it was bound to be a _long_ chat indeed.

Lily sat on the stone steps leading up to the enormous double door entrance of Hogwarts. She had finally gotten away from Nami and Chloe, saying that she just needed some fresh air. Now, as a result, Chloe's singsong voice was ringing in her head, chanting, "In love, in love, Lily's in love…"

Unable to get rid of her friend's voice in her head, she snapped into the silence, "Oh, shut up!"

"Er—you talking to me?" a voice spoke up behind her uncertainly. She whirled round and her eyes landed on James, who was clutching a broomstick in hand.

Lily raised an eyebrow at him, at the same time trying to quell the flip-flops in her stomach. "Are you spying on me?"

"What?" James said in reply, looking confused.

She shook her head. "Never mind. You just always seem to be around when I'm alone." _Alone and thinking about you, _she added mentally. She was starting to seriously consider that she possessed some kind of weird summoning power that would make James come to her without fail when her mind mentioned his name.

James just chuckled nervously, and Lily wondered what was up with him. He was acting a little stranger than usual. "Well, you shouldn't complain about it. That weird force that attracts me to you like a magnet saved your life one time!"

Lily felt her cheeks turning pink and mumbled, "Right." She couldn't think of anything to say after that, and neither could James. She grew a bit analytical on what James had said a moment ago, she couldn't help it. _Weird force that attracts me to you like a magnet…_ Did that have an underlying meaning or something? But then Lily became a bit cross with herself and thought, _Shut up, Lily, don't get your hopes up. He doesn't feel the same way about you… _And, as if trying to convince herself to face facts and that this was the truth, she asked James, "So. Who're you going to the Halloween Ball with?"

It was James' turn to blush, although Lily couldn't exactly tell why, because he was usually (as he was reputed to be) comfortable around the topic of girls. "I'm…er…going with Charlotte. I mean, Charlotte McAllister," he muttered.

Lily nodded, even though her heart sank at his reply. _What did you expect? That _James Potter _would be dateless and ask you out? _the little voice in her head said mockingly. She figured that Charlotte must mean a lot to James—after all, he was usually confident about whom he was going out with, but this time he was just…different. Trying not to let her unhappiness show on her face, she gave him a weak smile—it was all that she could muster at the time.

"How about you? Who's the lucky guy who'll dance with you, Lady Lily?" James asked, smiling back at her but looking a bit put out. Lily wondered what was really wrong with him. Something just wasn't right, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Nobody yet," she answered, trying not to let the bitterness seep into her voice. She didn't even want to go to the stupid ball, but she was still suffering for it. The things she did for her friends. Why did she have to let them persuade her?

"Oh. Don't worry though, with the looks you've got, I'm sure the poor lads who want to ask you out are just trying to work up the courage to do so," he remarked. He seemed a lot more cheerful now. Or maybe he was just trying to make her feel better about her pathetic life. Yes, that was probably it. That didn't exactly stop her from blushing at his comment about her looks, though.

"Yeah, well. Thanks," she said, standing up and trying to compose herself, telling herself that she shouldn't let James' compliments affect her too much. _He likes you, but only as a friend… Don't set yourself up for a bigger fall; you don't have a chance with him…_she recited in her head. "I've gotta go. See you around." She hurriedly left, afraid that if she stuck around any longer, her upset face would betray her real emotions.

Finally, the day that everyone (most, anyway) was waiting for arrived. The whole school was bustling with activity: people still without dates were running around, asking away; students on the dance committee were hauling around enormous pumpkins that were to be carved inside the Great Hall (it never occurred to them to just use a simple Levitating Charm to do the job); some girls were comparing notes and rushing through one another's dorm rooms to borrow this eyeliner or that bottle of nail polish; the house-elves were working furiously to whip up an excellent feast. Some, though, were content just to laze around and ignore the hustle and bustle of the majority of the Hogwarts population…

"You two! What are you doing, just sitting there doing nothing?! You've got to get ready!" Chloe exclaimed when she saw Lily and Nami on their respective beds. Lily was idly changing her quill into different rainbow colors every few seconds in a bored fashion, and Nami was reading her _International Spells and How to Work Them _book for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Nami peered at her from the top of her enormous book. "Who's doing nothing? _I'm_ reading, and Lily over there" she pointed at the redhead "is clearly doing some sort of psychedelic spell on her quill." As if this answer would satisfy her blonde friend, she shrugged and returned to reading.

"But the Halloween Ball is five hours away!" Chloe wailed, despairing at her friends' lack of interest in all the rituals that a normal girl goes through in preparation for a social event.

Nami shrugged again. "So? I can prepare in two," she said matter-of-factly.

Lily rolled her eyes. "I can prepare in point five," she topped.

Chloe stared at her disbelievingly. "_Half_ an _hour_?! Are you _crazy_? You have to take a shower, fix your nails, dress up, do your hair, put on makeup, pick the right jewelry—"

"By magic. Did that ever occur to you?" Lily cut in smoothly. "I can't see why so many girls slave away in front of the mirror for hours getting themselves a makeover and achieving the result of being the epitome of artificial guise with all the chemicals they put on their faces and hair."

"Yes, Lily, that's all good and well, but you have to keep in mind that we don't all have your brain when it comes to Charms," Nami replied, putting down her book. "So we'd rather play it safe and do everything manually than accidentally set our heads on fire with a spell gone wrong." She glanced at Chloe. "I'm just content enough to say that I can do it faster than _she_ does," she added, gesturing at the blonde.****

Chloe threw her hands up in defeat. "Have it your way! But don't blame me when we get to the dance late!"

Lily sighed, turning her quill back into its original ebony black and putting it away. "We'll get there in time, Chloe."

"I agree. Will you please stop putting exclamation points at the end of all your sentences now?" Nami requested, smiling innocently at her friend.

Chloe scowled. "Ha, ha. I am _not_ overreacting, Nami," she defended.

"I didn't say that. Did I say that, Lil?"

"No, you said, 'Will you stop putting exclamation points—'"

"That's enough," Chloe interrupted, a bit pink in the face. "Okay, what is this, Make-fun-of-Chloe day?"

"Sorry, Chloe," Lily and Nami chorused, trying to force the grins off their faces. "Why don't we just change the subject?" Nami suggested.

"Fine. Who are you guys going with to the dance?" Chloe asked.

Lily groaned. "I thought we decided to change the subject," she said exasperatedly.

"We _are _changing the subject. We've gone from preparing for the ball to who's-going-with-who to the ball."

"Will you run that by me again? 'Cause I think I just heard you say the word 'ball' twice, which means that they are related to the same topic, which means that we haven't moved on to another topic yet."

"We _are _on another topic; we were talking about makeup and dress robes and all that, now we're talking about boys—"

"Will you two just shut up and answer the question?" Nami said in annoyance. "It'd make your lives easier."

Chloe said happily without missing a beat, "I'm going with Keith Talbot."

Nami widened her eyes in mock unbelief. "Really? _The _Keith Talbot, the hot Ravenclaw Keeper? Dear, you are _so_ lucky!!!" Chloe glared at her and she burst out laughing.

"Oh, shut it, you two," Lily said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not going with anyone."

The two immediately turned their attention to her. "_What? _Why?" Chloe demanded.

"Didn't James ask you to go with him?" Nami asked in a strange voice.

Lily looked at her, getting a little cross. She didn't need to be reminded of that.  "No, _why _do you keep asking me that?"

"Because—well, who's he going with then?" Nami asked, avoiding the question. Lily was too absorbed to notice it, though.

"Charlotte McAllister," she answered quietly, and Chloe hugged her.

"Aw, don't worry, Lil, it was probably just a pity date; you know how soft James gets when it comes to women," she assured, trying to cheer Lily up.

Lily said nothing, so Chloe just continued, "How 'bout you, Nami?"

"Lance Malcolm from Hufflepuff," Nami replied while patting Lily on the back sympathetically.

Chloe looked surprised and didn't bother to hide it. "Why are you going with him?" she asked, as if Nami's answer were completely illogical.

Nami narrowed her eyes slightly. "Why shouldn't I?"

"I thought you were going with Sirius Black."

"Sirius is a _friend. _How many times must I tell you that?" Nami responded in annoyance.

Chloe just gave her the same strange look that the raven-haired girl had given Lily. "If you say so."

When the time of the dance came, many students milled around the entrance hall, looking for friends or dates. Because the Halloween Feast was integrated into the ball itself, first to third years were given permission to attend, much to their delight. Everyone who entered the Great Hall could see that it was magically enlarged into a chamber far bigger than it already was—this had to be done to accommodate a spacious dance floor in the middle of the room, along with a hundred-odd individual tables for the students and teachers.

The marauders, along with their dates, had a table for eight to themselves (yes, even Peter found a date…believe it ). Lily, Nami and Lance sat at a table for four, while Chloe and Keith had their own private table, as they obviously wanted some "alone" time with each other. Among all mentioned, Lily was the only one who was unhappy with the seating arrangements, or, for that matter, the whole ball itself.

"Sorry for being a third wheel. I'll leave, if you guys want," Lily mumbled over dinner, looking at Nami and her date apologetically, trying not to look too miserable to be there.

Nami waved a hand carelessly. "It doesn't bother us at all. Lance's parents are family friends of mine, and we've been together since we were kids."

"Yeah, Lily," Lance said with a nod. "We're just very good friends, unlike those two over there," he added, pointing two tables away at Chloe and Keith, who appeared lost in each others' eyes.

Nami stifled a giggle. "Merlin, they make me sick," she said, making a face. "Anyway, Lil, the point is that you're not intruding on anything at all, so just chill and enjoy the dance." Lily became content with this answer, settling down and chatting pleasantly with her two companions…until the time came when the food disappeared from their plates and music started playing from out of nowhere. Dumbledore announced that the dance floor was now open for all, and couples started standing up and moving toward it.

"I love this song! Didn't we use to hear this all the time when we were ten?" Nami said, addressing Lance, who laughed.

"Do I ever! We only just choreographed three different dances for it back then!" Lance answered, his eyes sparkling. He stood up and helped her up.

Nami turned to Lily. "You don't mind, do you Lil?" she asked.

Lily smiled at them. "Of course not. Don't let me spoil your fun." She watched the two disappear into the sea of vivid-colored robes. She sighed when her state of loneliness sank in. _Now what do I do? _Nothing was left on the tables, not even a fork or spoon that she could fiddle with—just the mini jack-o-lantern that was used as a centerpiece for all the tables. She stood up, dodging people who were on their way to the dance floor. Her feet led her outside the enormous double doors leading outside of the castle, down to a well-manicured garden that was organized especially for the Halloween occasion. Several jack-o-lanterns were scattered among the shrubbery, each emitting a different color of light. At the center of the garden was a fountain, and in the center of it were the traditional Halloween monsters that Muggles and wizards alike knew of. The water in the fountain was dyed red, and in the dim light it looked a bit like blood. Lily sat down on the circular ledge of the fountain.

She had a feeling that she would be there for a while.

James sighed, starting to get bored. He had already danced five dances with Charlotte, but to be honest with himself, he didn't enjoy it. The first thing that popped into his mind after this realization was: _I wish I were dancing with Lily. _

He had already asked her friends of her whereabouts. Nami informed him that she was at their table, and when he told her that Lily wasn't there, she suggested that maybe she got bored and left, perhaps to the dorms. Chloe said that she might have found a dance partner and was somewhere in the crowd of dancing students. Somehow James thought that neither were correct in their assumptions.

Lily had already told him that she didn't fancy going to the ball, but if somebody she liked ask her to the dance, she'd be glad to go.

_"Who's this somebody you want to go with?" James asked Lily teasingly._

_Lily blushed and looked away, mumbling, "You don't need to know. Besides, he probably won't ask me anyway."_

_"Why do you think so? Who _wouldn't _want to go with you? Everybody likes you."_

_She shrugged. "_You _used to hate me," she shot back, cracking a slight smile._

_James wagged his index finger in front of her. "The key words being 'used to.' If I didn't have a date, I'd be thrilled to go with you."_

_Lily just looked at him sadly, her deep green eyes losing a little of their glimmer.__ "I'm sure you would have been," she said quietly._

He had excused himself, just wanting to get away from the noise of the Great Hall. Charlotte was nice and all, but he just didn't feel up to her company. He noticed that ever since he started picking on Lily Evans, he had neglected a few of the things that made his life at Hogwarts go round—dating girls, plotting pranks to pull on the Slytherins, obsessing about Quidditch. Lily had occupied most of his thoughts this year. Maybe that was what made him start to like her. He had analyzed her behavior and her life so much that his dislike gradually turned into interest. He no longer looked at her as someone to despise, but someone to be a friend to. Someone to care about.

Someone to love.

He found himself standing at the top of the steps leading to the front door of Hogwarts castle. He looked around in a daze. Now how did he get here? He must have been more preoccupied than he thought. As he turned around to go back to the castle, a flash of red somewhere nearby caught his eye.

He squinted into the dark and finally found the person he was looking for. Lily was sitting at the fountain ledge, her knees pulled up to her chin with her arms wrapped around her legs. He hurried down the steps toward her, and she looked up as soon as she heard him coming.

She smiled faintly at him. "Hi."

"Hey. What are you doing out here all alone?" James asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and standing in front of her.

"No date, remember? Speaking of dates, why aren't you with yours?" There was a tone of gloom and bitterness in her voice that James failed to notice.

James sat beside her. "I just needed a little break from all that dancing," he lied, smiling at her. She really did look beautiful. Lily was wearing white dress robes that gave a faint glow in the darkness, and she had left her straight dark red hair as is, tumbling down her back. Someone (James suspected Chloe) had done her makeup expertly, putting glittery powder blue eye shadow on her eyelids and a touch of light pink lip gloss on her lips. Her naturally rosy cheeks were left untouched. She wore simple silver hoop earrings, only there were three tiny silver rings dangling from the hoops. She looked…perfect.

"At least you have someone to dance with," Lily replied, a bit downcast. "You shouldn't be staying out here, you know. Lots more fun inside."

He smiled amusedly. "Really? Then why aren't _you_ inside?"

Lily just shook her head, not cheering up in the slightest. "I'm just not in the mood for fun right now." They were silent after that, contenting themselves to staring at the flickering lights of the candles inside the jack-o-lanterns.

After what seemed like five minutes, James looked up at the star-filled sky and asked quietly, "Lily, have you ever had the feeling that you loved someone, but you knew that they didn't love you back?"

Startled at the question (and what it was about), Lily didn't answer immediately. "Well," she said finally, instantly remembering her feelings for him, "I suppose…yes, yes I have," she finished conclusively. _Yes, I _do, _right now, _she added mentally, miserably. "Why do you ask?" she managed to ask, suddenly aware of a lump in her throat and the tears at the corner of her eyes.

James shook his head. "Nothing. I was just…never mind. It was a stupid question."

"It really wasn't," Lily said. "You look like you'd say yes to your own question too, though."

Breathing deeply, James looked at her. "There's this girl," he started, inwardly bewildered at himself for telling all this to Lily. "I… Well, I recently worked out that I like her as, you know, more than a friend..." He glanced at her, expecting some sort of response, although he didn't know exactly what.

Lily's heart stopped. Here it was. Undeniable proof that James was in love with another girl… "Charlotte?"

James shook his head vehemently, his untidy hair flying everywhere. "No, not her. The problem is, I know that this girl doesn't feel the same way—"

"How do you know that she doesn't?" Lily interrupted. It pained her to know that he loved someone else, but she was starting to accept the fact that she could never have him. The least she could do was make him happy. Even if she suffered for it. He deserved it. And she knew that she didn't deserve him.

"I don't know…I just feel that she doesn't. Anyway, because of her, I realized that I stopped going out with other girls. I'm not proud of it, but I know that I used to go out with a new girl every other week" Lily cracked a small smile at his self-admittance "and she made me change. She made me change a lot of things about me, and she doesn't even know it. But now I really don't know what to do. What do you do if the person you love doesn't feel the same way about you? I don't know whether I should give up and just feel miserable, or go back to living up to my reputation and completely forgetting about her."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Lily asked softly, blinking back tears surreptitiously as she pretended to look somewhere else.

James himself couldn't answer that truthfully. Why was he telling Lily all about the girl he loved, when she herself was that girl? "I just felt like I had to, I guess," he mumbled, not knowing what to say.

Lily took a deep breath. "James, if you really love this girl, then you shouldn't give up on her that easily. Why would you want to go back to being a player? You already know that she was the one who made you change into someone better. Do you really want to lose all that? Fight for her. You'll regret it all your life if you don't."

What Lily didn't know was that every word of encouragement that she said was like a blow to James' heart. In his mind, Lily thought that he loved some other girl, and she wanted him to continue pursuing her. She didn't love him, and she wanted him to be happy with someone else. "I guess you're right," he said slowly, trying not to sound too affected by what she said.

Lily didn't know what came over her after that, but when she saw him looking so uncertain and confused, she cupped his chin in her hand and pulled him closer until their noses were barely an inch apart. James was completely shocked but didn't try to move back—he didn't move at all, for that matter. And then Lily found herself saying boldly, "Look at me, James. Pretend that I was Charlotte—or any other girl you've gone out with for fun before—and we're out on a date. If you say that you really love someone else, would you still kiss me or would you tell me the truth and set me straight, and never give up on the one you love?"

James didn't answer, paralyzed in his position. Lily's eyes were staring straight into his, mesmerizing him. She was so close, he could feel her breath on his face and count every freckle on hers. He didn't know what to think…his mind was spinning…and after what seemed like an eternity, he moved.

Lily expected James to push her away, and was equally shocked when he put one arm around her waist and closed the gap between them, kissing her softly on the lips. For a moment her mind was clouded with different emotions: confusion, relief, happiness, contentment, release. Her thoughts were in a jumble—scattering, regrouping, then scattering again. Whatever was happening to her then and there, she knew that it was the most wonderful feeling she ever had.

But when they broke the kiss, logical thinking and the cruel reality brought her back to earth like a douse of ice-cold water. James had kissed her, meaning that he would still go out with other girls even if he felt nothing for them. She realized that when he kissed her, it was just like the kisses he shared with his countless ex-girlfriends: empty, hollow and without love. And if he could do that to her, make her feel like somebody he could just use, then he really didn't love her at all.

She pulled away, tears stinging her eyes, but she didn't let a single one fall. She had already shown her weakness to him once, and she would never let it happen again. Not after this.

"You kissed me back," James said quietly, staring at her with intense hazel eyes.

Lily's face flushed. _Stop it, _she said furiously to herself. _It didn't mean anything to him, remember? _"_You _kissed _me. _Which means that you don't love her as much as you told me you did," she answered calmly, although her cheeks were still burning.

But James was smiling now, and his observation was filling his mind with hope. Lily could have pushed him away the moment his lips touched hers. But she didn't. She kissed him back, which meant…

…she felt the same way about him as he did for her.

"I can't believe you did that. You actually decided to keep on playing other girls like toys, just so they could fill the gaping hole that you have in your heart because of unrequited love! I can't believe you'd stoop so low for your own selfish reasons!" Lil couldn't help it now—angry tears spilled down her cheeks and she wiped them away hastily.

"You're wrong, Lily," James replied, not in the least fazed by her accusation, his eyes twinkling with love and happiness. "You told me not to give up on the girl I love. And I didn't."

"W-what?" Lily stammered, thrown by surprise and completely confused.

James just smiled at her, and went on. "Because the girl that I told you about…the girl that I love…" He pulled her close to him and stared directly into her eyes. "…is you."

Lily felt as if her heart would explode from beating so fast. The rush of emotions that she felt during their kiss came back, overwhelming her. For the first time in her whole life, she felt truly happy. "James, I just want you to know—"

James pressed a finger over her lips and grinned. "Shhh. I already know." Before Lily could think, he put his hand down and gave her another kiss, longer and more passionate than the last.

It was only now that Lily realized that the true meaning of perfection. All her life she had strived for it and the cost was that she almost lost everything she worked for. Now she knew that perfection was like happiness: if you pursue it, it will elude you. But if you focus on the people who care for you and all the things that make your life worth living, then it would find you. _Perfection _was different from _perfectionism_. She didn't know it then, but now for her the difference was all too clear.

_This _was perfection. And now that it found her, she had no intention of letting it go.

Nami held up a camera and snapped a picture. She grinned and gestured at the couple locked in a kiss before turning back to the dark-haired boy beside her. "Well, there it is," she said, pulling the developed photograph off the camera and examining it. "Living proof that I am right and that you, yet again, are wrong."

Sirius scowled at her. "You were taking a wild stab in the dark back then. It was a completely coincidental guess. You even contradicted me when I said they were eventually going to end up together! And now you're standing there with that smug look on your face, as if _you_ were the one who saw all this coming and—"

"Quit your yapping and pay up," Nami interrupted.

Sirius grumbled, grudgingly taking out his pouch and giving her twenty Galleons. "Consider yourself lucky."

"Uh-huh," Nami said, turning around to get back inside. "C'mon, let's go back," she called over her shoulder.

"Why'd you take a picture anyway? You do realize that they'll kill you once they saw it or found out about what you did. Personally, though, I wouldn't mind." Sirius grinned cheekily at her and got a slap on the arm in return.

"I would just love to show this piece of evidence to everyone you know and tell them about how Sirius Black has, for the first time in his perfect, omnipotent-gambler existence, lost a bet. That would probably scar your reputation a bit. Personally, though, I wouldn't mind," she repeated his words, smirking.

Sirius, who valued his reputation above all else (well, except for food, and Quidditch, and girls…oh, and his friends too), snatched the photograph away from her. "You're doing nothing of the sort," he announced, holding the picture out of her reach and looking at it. He slowly brought it down to see it better against the light. Nami peered over his shoulder at the captured moment (she had used a Muggle camera with a little twist of magic to make it have focusable binocular lens): Lily and James staring into each other's eyes, looking like the happiest people on earth.

"They make the perfect couple," Nami said, for once devoid of any sarcastic comments about people in love.

"Yeah, they do," Sirius agreed, pocketing the photo. 

"They've gone through a lot to get where they are, haven't they?" Nami remarked thoughtfully. "And now it's happily ever after, I suppose. Almost like it had all been written down in a story…"

Smiling at each other, a nostalgic air about them, they walked the path to the Great Hall.

**The End…**

_"Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."_

_Antoine de Saint-Exupéry_

**A/N – **Finally, it's finished. Eleven whopping pages. Those who've read my other works already know how I always end my stories with an extremely long chapter…not that my other chapters are short, as one of my friends kindly pointed out to me the other day…

Thanks to everyone who read this story (and a bigger thanks to those who reviewed! ). I'd write your names down here but as I write this I have no access to the Internet, and once I do I'm going to post this straight away. Anyway, if you're reading this, then that's good enough for me…of course, reviewing would be a nice gesture too… XP


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